Hamartia.

The line is drawn in dust.
A rail. A place to stand
as if standing could decide.

Seventy meters was mercy—
wind, muscle, practice,
a miss that still felt close.

But the mark is not hung in any field.
It burns beyond our air,
a small gold circle
on a planet we will never touch.
Four inches and Jupiter.

We are handed bows
before thought knows speech.
Hit it, we’re told.
Not often, but always.
Not mostly, but once without fail.
The rule provides the how,
though not the why.

No warm-up.
No weakness forgiven.
The standard does not bend.
So we draw, with breath held,
and eye narrowed into belief.

Beside me, another archer, chin lifted,
sure the universe counts averages.
He releases. Again.
Each arrow rises, then falls,
gravity keeping its counsel.
He adjusts his stance.
Speaks of progress, keeps a ledger
and calls it hope.

I do the same.
I tell myself the bow will learn me.
That enough near-misses
become a kind of righteousness.
That distance is negotiable.

The air does not answer.
The arrow cannot leave the earth’s orbit.
It dies in thin blue and returns.
Again.

In Adam, the range never closes.
The quiver is always full, and never enough.
A thousand shots cannot erase one miss.
One miss is all we have.

Then the lie breaks.
Not the bow. Not the will.
The premise.
My hands open.
The bow lowers, truth finally weighing less
than the effort to deny it.
Silence.

He steps to the line.
Not as a better archer.
Not as another willing to try.
He draws without strain.
No aim. No arc. No hope.

He releases.
The arrow does not climb.
It goes where it belongs.
The mark receives it without surprise.
The range empties.

Alone, the other archer still shoots,
still confident enough arrows will win.

I stand where I am,
bow lowered, and watch hope
fall back to earth.

Finished.