there was an old lady who wanted to fly
each day she'd climb up on her roof
flap her arms and get ready to jump
but each time at the last second
she'd climb back down.

she'd talk to me all day and night,
(occasionally forgetting who i was),
she'd talk of her childhood,
lost and found love and
her forgotten generation.

"my favourite feeling", she croaked
one night after a little too much gin
"was coming back down on the swing,
the way it made your stomach drop
and float in through your body".

she would go on endlessly about
the times this happened to her
when bungee jumping, for example,
or after meeting a man who could
make her knees go weak.

nearing eighty now, this alone
was awkward to talk to her about
as everytime she reminisced
a tear would roll down her leathery face
and get lost in a wrinkle.

i went to visit her one day
and instead found her in the yard
and again on the door, and again
on the pavement, she'd finally tried
to fly, alas.

i know why she did it though,
took the final plunge
off her apartment roof
all she wanted before her death was
to make her knees grow weak again.