The Leap

Lending his body to air,

his mind took the other side of the ditch.

He had no aversion to the ethereal;

was simply there, on the other side. 

His feet, despite their lack of traction

on take-off, presumed to run a plotted,

dotted, parabolic course,

apparently believing, just as he,

that when anyone lends anything to anything

it ought to come back on appropriate terms.

Nevertheless, when his shoes hit water

and descended farther into yielding muck,

the surprise which, in theory, should have been total,

rang with certain sounds of annoyance.