Precarious 

by Leslie Ullman

Balance in moving parts: the rider
spurring her horse on a straightaway
before she remembers to
reach down and tighten the girth
or the skier dislodging new snow in a chute
too steep for a safe fall, skier and snow
riding the crest of themselves as avalanche;        

the vertigo new lovers ignore
at the heights of discovering, their hands
free over one another’s eyes, cheeks, their
histories waiting like unopened parcels
below — they don’t know they
don’t know what’s inside — and
then, if they survive the heat,
the anvil, the long cooling into a calm
devotion, a durable rhythm of speech
and silence, a thin sheen melts
and freezes imperceptibly (and they
know this) on a mountain road
one of them travels every day;

resilience gone slowly, undetected
in the heart, that reliable muscle,
or the hip or knee or tunnels of softening bone —
one moment one holds one’s own in all
the threatened air the traffic and people in a hurry
are pushing through, and then
one doesn’t, or won’t again
without having to consider the weight
and isolation of each limb;
imbalance in moving
parts; separation;
prelude.