I am in at least two sorts of race with my body, where “with” means both “riding in and by means of” and “against, viewing it as a competitor”: what can I get myself to learn to do and to do as soon as possible in the competitive moment or minute or day or month or calendar year before its changes take the willingness or the supposedly fearless patience (whatever that means) or the ability away
practice practice practice practice look at me practice don’t look at me head over
head over heels over head over heels and practice practice
whether any of the people watching me who have not done the things I do know what I can do or what I have been trying to do or how hard it can be or how easy it seemed before I knew what I was doing not that I know what I am doing now
practice beyond the interminable practice might be the effortless practice practice
or apparently effortless practice or something like joy
only my peers understand me (if they do) maybe I have no peers
to prepare for years to concentrate for the entirety of a life
(short as it seems to adults) to see eternity as a warm-up and a walk-through
for a minute and a half to be and to show what you are
over and steady two hurtles flic-flac this is what you had practiced practice practice
practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice
to have become someone who has to be only what you show the world
that’s what you are so soon it will be what you were
maybe someday I can have a move named after me
the rotation the rounded arc the stick that casual fans and families know
the return from infinite vertical space into human time
what is amazing to amateurs has to become
second nature no marvel a stopwatch to me
two hurtles flic-flac this is what you had practiced practice practice practice practice
practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice two folds more
there used to always be a balance beam in my dreams
and the sensation of turning over and over into the Amanar space
the pale blue and all too exciting wish never to land
to have become someone who has to be only what you show the world
that’s what you are so soon it will be what you were