I climb the steps, my heart racing

from the exertion in the moment of excitement.

At the top, I feel the buffet of the wind, my mouth dry,

the wind, a harsh noise in my ears, streaming tears from my eyes.

I find my way to the edge, across the sloping platform.

The tower feels firm beneath my feet, not yet ready to fall.

I spend just an instant at the top,

amazed that people on the plaza below are such tiny dots.

Then I leap, and that ephemeral millisecond of fear is gone,

swept from the present into the past, its life stillborn.

I only know it now as a memory,

something to be reimagined, reconstructed, remanufactured

but never able to be reborn.

Above my head, the canopy blooms while people below look up, aghast and relieved.