Gravity doesn’t keep you footed on it, the Earth holds
you by the soles, saving you
from floating to where your head shouldn’t be.

In the clouds.

Now you’re a little old man, and instead of ghosting
to heaven in some grand manifesto,
you go slumping into the ditch.
Again, it grounds you, grinding you
into fertilizer snorted by the wishing
rods snapped and blown bald by a toddler,
but you’re happy to pay back the Earth that hugged you
when nobody else did.

Read more by Javier in his book, Cicada, Ladybug, available here.