upon closer examination, it is not a scarf

Only the thin liquid crystal
          screen separates us
& I can rewind the video
          so I do,
watch the man throw
          his eleven-month-old girl off the roof
over & over &
          over again. I saw it first streaming
over my Facebook,
          a blip descending scream
sandwiched between ten facts about
          anxiety that I probably won't believe
and an ad for the diapers
          I do not yet know I want,
the autoplays of Subarus
           & pain relief,
a reminder that gravity
           like fatherhood
is a neutral,
           irreversible force.
Scrubbing
           the video backwards
here is what
           I see: the baby
girl leaping up
           the lip of roof
to her daddy's open hands
           his soft hands undoing
over & over &
           over again
the weightless,
           ribboning noose.

ξ

James Fujinami Moore graduated from the Hunter MFA Program in poetry in 2016. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Pacifica Literary Review and Guesthouse. He lives in New York.