we can't shake
the feeling
that our bodies
should be more static—
not these great
twist contests
of vestigial viruses
and genes
in giant lines, switching
off and on again
one at a time
like they're taking turns trying
to duck the limbo stick.
In fact, it seems
almost automatic—
every precious time
we get the chance
to close our eyes, we see
in a dream, the lure
of advancement
as an abstract
substitute for light—
that feeling of warmth
by which we might,
in an ancient time,
once have felf
unselfconscious enough
to unspool
in the water—to expand
and to rise
toward a surface that,
to breach, we all knew
would be suicide.
