She says, The first place
you notice your lack of commitment
is in your hands. Are they cupped?
Press all four corners
flat into the earth. Feel how the ground
pushes energy back up through your arms.
She says, The next place
you notice your lack of commitment
is in your elbows. If they bend,
you depend on your muscles
instead of letting your skeleton
support you.
*
I think about the undersides of things.
How if you lift a rock,
there’s another, dark world
writhing and wriggling
and so full of life.
*
She says, The next place
you notice your lack of commitment
is in your back, how it bends
like a banana, gets soft like a noodle.
She says, It is easy as standing.
She says, Any fear is a trick of the mind.
*
Not once
have I found a scorpion
under a stone.
Every time I lift one
I worry.
*
She says, Three inches from the wall,
plant your fingertips. At the edge of the wall,
fix your gaze. First bring the feet
just beneath the navel.
Then raise one foot.
Then two.
*
If a woman
stays too long
in one place,
what begins
to grow?
*
She says, The head
is beneath the heart.
She says, It’s another way
to see.
She says, You must overcome
your fear of falling.
She says, Try.
*
Upside down, and
my fear falls out
of my pockets. And something else,
falls out, too, I can’t yet say
what it is,
but the tears afterward,
they were not grief
nor loss, they tasted
more like
rain that falls
on ground
that has just been cleared.