All those grains of sand rushing towards us at 32 feet per second, per second.

They whisper together, inform us that they’re solid:

a barrier erected long ago

well out of memory’s reach

not by hands but by

the coincidental workings of

accident and the Laws of Nature.

I tell you we’ll pass right through 

And moving from the realm of clouds

into living stone will be glorious.

We’ll find the vast vacuums of space between each atom of

durable slickrock, limestone, and antimony—slip right through

not dodging, barely curving our backs. 

We’re unmarked.

And we keep falling as though our very lives depended on it.