a fly poised on the sill
where a shadow    falls

half bathed in light    half
my mind on the Hiroshima 

bombing    seventy-nine years 
ago    yesterday    considering 

those   who survived the flash 
shielded by some arbitrary   

cast of shadow   jumping to
fifty years ago today    Philippe

Petit    who danced a tensile line
between World Trade Towers

gazing down    into a gawking 
city    from a quarter-mile up

almost the same    altitude
as the detonating A-bomb

and I think    of the fly’s
odds of survival   under 

the arc    of a swatter
such a simple bundle

of miniscule reflexes
to be teetering upon

will it launch    into
the light    or break

for shadow