To blast it out of me –
I would die with the blast,
some small speck of me
remain, fearless,
cruising on every possibility,
open-eyed, without that soul
caving in, without a hundred deaths
frog-marching me along
to where and when they never say.
To blast it out of me,
the fear that chokes and cripples –
I would shoot clear of the blast
like a tiger flying from a fire,
nothing left of me for sure but heart,
body and brain,
my long long girlish limbs and teeth
once coated with fear as with plaque
now smiling in endless,
unknowable,
endless ascent.

© Petra White
Appears in the author’s book of poetry A Hunger, John Leonard Press.

A Hunger can be purchased on this link: http://www.readings.com.au/products/18778221/a-hunger-with-the-simplified-world-and-the-incoming-tide

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140408.html