One of life’s little tricks guided me up my basement stairs,
my hands loaded with three bottles of wine from the cellar
for thirsty guests at a dinner party. As it turned out, the trick 
was a clumsy stumble, my right shoe jamming into something on 
the steps, sending me sprawling forward helplessly, hands full, 
unable to brake my lunge toward the top few steps, alas, making 
my right knee slam into the ledge of one of them. Ergo pain, 
humiliation, a lingering assessment of life, human 
vulnerability, Fate’s wishes, and, oh yes, Heaven.

If there is a Heaven and I should be so fortunate to reach it someday --
perhaps after a more serious tumble -- what would it be like? Would I 
gain entry on probation for three to six months, or would I be a model 
angel in the place, much to the envy of others there? The place being Heaven, 
would I take on a persona other than a knotty-kneed, increasingly 
accident-prone shuffler, or would I assume a Nureyevian gracefulness 
that would readily distinguish me from other less agile angels?

What’s more, it’s probably a safe assumption that, in Heaven, there are no 
basement stairs to scale, fewer, if any, traps for innocent souls like me to 
be snared by, houses of clouds ever so soft to the touch that bruises are
downright impossible, where top-notch pinot noir is just a wink away.

This poem first appeared in Free Verse.
Used here with the author’s permission.