Twitching on land, snapping elastic, marking upright,
flat-footed, what they must do head down.
Climbing, each rung a coil in gravity’s spring, a problem
to turn over in the body’s weight and resolve.
A twist in the air like calligraphy, thigh muscles serif the drop,
losing it, then refusing to be one more body acted upon, to just fall.
It’s over so quickly a witness’s memory still sketches half the form
while that womb of still water closes with a wet-kiss smack.
Judges, cameras, the apertures of record will reveal the whole
story, invisible now. We were there. We saw it: she fell
and falling made even gravity speak, every force against her forced
to turn, give testimony. She hoists out of the water. She does it again.
Kim Garcia is the author of DRONE, Tales of the Sisters, Madonna Magdalene and The Brighter House. She teaches creative writing at Boston College.
