Flying and You Know He’s Not Coming Down

By PETER JAY SHIPPY

 

How can the one-man band disband?
They say scads of folks cried at his

Scattering. Rosa, his wife applied
The first kindle to the tinder, but

A nervous firefighter intervened
And doused his ashes-to-ashes machine

With seltzer, unsealing his fate.
Now, he slides across their ceiling like

A glum child tiptoeing a frozen lake,
Wondering what he might be to fall

Through the ether empty as a note.
They say he’s an aureate bode. Now,

She tends to her beefsteaks by moonlight,
Hoping to avoid his lowing cloud.

They say her vines sway like cobras, charmed
By her hips, that samba; her bare toes

Tune the dirt. At dusk, Rosa calls it
A night and walks inside and buries

A radio under her pillow
To catch the late scores from the coast.

 

 

Peter Jay Shippy is the author of Thieves’ Latin, Alphaville, and How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic.

Click here to purchase Issue 03

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Flying and You Know He’s Not Coming Down

Related Posts

beach

“During the Drought,” “Sestina, Mount Mitchill,” “Dragonflies”

LIZA KATZ DUNCAN
”The earth, as blue and green / as a child’s drawing of the earth— // is this what disaster looks like? My love, think / of the dragonflies, each migratory trip / spanning generations. Imagine // that kind of faith: to leave a place behind / knowing a part of you will find its way back, / instinct outweighing desire.

whale sculpture on white background

September 2025 Poetry Feature: Earth Water Fire Poems, a Conversation

LISA ASAGI
"We and the whales, / and everyone else, / sleep and wake in bodies / that have a bit of everything / that has ever lived. Forests, oceans, / horse shoe crabs, horses, / orange trees in countless of glasses of juice, / lichen that once grew / on the cliffsides of our ancestors, / deepseated rhizomes, and stars. // Even stars are made

Hitting a Wall and Making a Door: A Conversation between Phillis Levin and Diane Mehta

DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN
This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.