Pegasus
I’m riding for a fall and I know it and I don’t care at all and I show it.
I’m riding for a fall with an awful clatter; but if it didn’t hurt at all, would it matter?
Kay Sage
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
I’m riding for a fall and I know it and I don’t care at all and I show it.
I’m riding for a fall with an awful clatter; but if it didn’t hurt at all, would it matter?
The speaker is galloping toward disaster and has no interest in slowing down. "I'm riding for a fall" is an old phrase for courting trouble, and here it's said twice, flatly and almost cheerfully: she knows it, she doesn't care, and she makes no effort to hide it. The title adds a layer. Pegasus is the winged horse of myth, so the ride may be about more than recklessness. It could stand for a wild, soaring impulse, whether creative, emotional, or simply daring, that the speaker refuses to rein in.
The second stanza turns the defiance into a small argument. She admits the fall will come "with an awful clatter" and will hurt. Then she asks, "would it matter?" if it didn't. The suggestion is that pain is the proof of stakes: a risk that costs nothing is hardly worth taking. The mood is brisk and bold, but the short lines and tidy rhymes carry a dry edge, as if the speaker is shrugging at her own fate.