Shanghai Tower

I wouldn’t get caught dead in Dubai, so probably then in the end
the tallest building I’ll ever have visited in my lifetime is the Shanghai Tower.

I went there last year, and two years before, both times to feel that momentary rush to the 128-story top,
take a 360-degree survey to spot any changes in the old neighborhood,
and maybe I go to know how much I’ve grown.

It’s become my most recent pencil marking of years standing against a measuring wall.
All that’s behind me now in this year — pray not years — of the pandemic.
So I won’t discover if I’ve grown any over this last year.

I’ll miss that trip.

In the lightning journey upward I can almost believe
I’d bump into Marty Milner and Vera Miles.
I swear you fly up so fast you seem to leave your earthly essence behind,
only your spirit soaring toward heaven,
your body having turned finally to air.