The Jump

It seems to be making me more than I am making it. The jump, that is. The jump from trying to make it in the academic scramble to doing community service, from writing for others to writing for myself and then others, from argument to poetry. (That's the hard one to admit out loud.) This decline, this downward mobility, has me by the ... scruff (not what I wanted to write). My brain has become so unruly and obstreperous that I cannot make myself sit in meetings any more, teach the curriculum, or even meet my classes. All I can do is plot my escape. I'm in a crouch by the fence, waiting for the chance to spring forward and out, across the barrier between me and my future. The searchlight passes. Darkness covers my tracks before the next sweep. Time to jump. Up, you fool, up.