English Sonnet: "The Velocity of Ava Baumgartner"
She watches Felix float away from earth
out to the edges of the atmosphere,
sobbing on the tarmac. The balloon’s berth
blesses his silver suit, the jump, the sear-
ing shape of his falling figure.
*
When blood
unites its chemicals, the reaction
occurs at five milliseconds; this bud
of love or fear spreads out at a fraction
faster than Felix bit by gravity.
*
Not four minutes, he splits the speed of sound.
Barometer of his mother’s body,
she’s matched--passes--the miles left to the ground.
His body burned into motion can’t crest
the defied physics of a heaving chest.
