Uprooted

At midnight, in the alleyway, I walked through black puddles in bare feet.
In mid-step, there was only enough weight to sweep my toes between the water’s skin and the ground’s concrete solidity.
The hovering of a young woman.

In childhood there was no weightlessness,
There was certainty, trees and soil, the bottoms of my toes grasping dead grass, and the sounds of young voices speaking of God.

Looking out into the sky, squinting, with the breeze bringing smells of my thick black hair too hot to touch,

Warm hose water clinging, seeping into the lawn,
Wilting roses.

I was wiser.

Back then, hot concrete, baking in the summer sun, was what gave you calluses on the soles of your feet.

Floating was foreign.

Expiratory reserve volume (ERV):

The amount of additional air that can be breathed out after normal expiration. (At the end of a normal breath, the lungs contain the residual volume plus the expiratory reserve volume, or around 2.4 liters. If one then goes on and exhales as much as possible, only the residual volume (RV) of 1.2 liters remains). The maximum volume of air that can be expired in addition to the normally expired air.

This is what leaves:
Initial reaction/shock/pain/ERV.

What is left, is a hollow space.
A hollow space/RV.
The kind you hold in your throat.