It’s a slippery
world with slippery
ways and the treads on our soles
only keep us from slipping
until they don’t—
slippery words and slipping red shoulds
and slippery thoughts and slippery roads—
and each time we slip, we bruise,
then we rise, ’til we slip again
with our slippery steps
and our slippery lives,
it’s a slip of a wish,
this slippery hope
that we and the world
remain unbroke
n.