Practiced writing isn't writing practiced.

One is stepping slow to find the floor and holding on with toe to keep from flying

Two is hurling heel from peak of O to Hades, slamming strong when surface intercedes. Knee follows. Hips wait to find their level.

Both fear: one falling, down from under earth toward cloud and past to space. The dreams of falling in the stairs. The stomach heaving void.

two fears the break. That piece of wood that creaks. That rolling stone. The earth that melts, and sinking step to grave.

How we walk when death is at our heels. The many ways to run.

As children we would cling, she and I, to the edge of the mattress. Or leap terrified and panicrun to hall. There were then no distinctions, the imagined snakes of shadows, or sharks in the shag, and the cancerous slow things of day, like being asked how you were. Or like being loved, and left anyway.