Safety Dance

"If you get simple beauty and naught else, You get about the best thing God invents." ~Robert Browning

on discarded oaths

I inexperience,
run with dull scissors ,
heave breath on my days
on
my braids
I like to balance empty buckets.

I endeavor,
recoil,
and remember to forget.

I double dutch well
but those
beaded ropes
click welts
if not clacking in time.

I two step
forward
heal toe
back
and kick,
ball into a ruddy changeling.

I throw ___ off track
then
the dogs.

I bathe for hours
and lukewarm hours.
When my dimpled limbs
are too heavy
to move
I weap
in remembrance of
him