That Moment
by D. Dina Friedman
We were standing at the edge
of the waterfall. You leaned in.
I didn’t know
if you were going to kiss me
or push me. Men are like that.
Not all men—but you,
I could imagine your eyes shredding my clothes
scanning my so-called secret
ballot, your anger swelling
like a swarm of hungry bees.
I could imagine a fist,
though there never was a fist.
You were like that. A bad boy,
so cute in your swagger, slashed jeans.
Don’t trust me, you said
as we stood at the gorge’s edge,
I might throw you in.
The kiss was miraculous.
All of me tingled on that precipice
but I didn’t fall in—or fall for you.
I built a buttress out of my bones,
determined not to be shredded skin
disappearing into the current’s rush,
all part of the nature of things.
Angry eyes. Trigger fists.
D. Dina Friedman has published in many literary journals including Salamander, Rattle, The Sun, Mass Poetry, Chautauqua Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Cider Press Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Cold Mountain Review, Lilith, Negative Capability, and Rhino and received six Pushcart Prizes and two Best-of-the Net nominations. She is the author of two previous poetry chapbooks, Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press) and Here in Sanctuary, Whirling (Querencia Press). Dina’s fiction includes the short-story collection Immigrants (Creators Press) and two YA novels, Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux). To learn more about Dina, visit her website at www.ddinafriedman.com and subscribe to her blog on living a creative life in a creatively challenged universe at ddinafriedman.substack.com.