La Vita Nuova

A flock of them that day took to the sky,
The paragliders, harnessed loose and slung
Precariously to fly
The steppes of air, those empty replicas
Of paddocks, where their shadows warped and swung
Like a windborne attack.
Above them, though, began to magnify
In roiling folds what was
About to take her life, and give it back.

From all that flight of dozens, it plucked her.
A miles-high mass, it snatched her parachute
At the perimeter
And sucked it in, and up the roaring siphon
Of pressure, hail and black light in dispute
To grapple and transform
Her body to a frozen armature,
Which lofted with her life in
Suspension up to the ceiling of the storm.