Sway

I can feel the sway

within the search for my center

I maintain the tenuous balance  

through my toes

Plant my feet

Flex my knees

Arch my back 

Fill my lungs with air

Lift my chin

and look upward

But it is hard to sustain

that posture
for more than a moment

Even though I want to stay
more than anything

I begin to feel the sway

Shifting my balance from one side 

to the other

Giving each leg a turn to carry 

all the weight at once

Seems unfair and unnecessary 

when there are two

made to hold the load together

In my reach for the center

The pendulum swings to one side

I feel the tempo of my mother

A frantic metronome

of anxiety
buzzing within me

Worker bee activity

filling the comb with honey

so there are no empty spaces

the sweet is quick

and the flight of bumble

catches up with me

bee wings are beautiful

but tiny

the weight of the pollen 

I have gathered

starts to burden

so flying becomes

difficult 

I see how far from the hive

I have strayed

and my leg starts to burn

So I shift my stance

I begin to feel the sway

the pendulum counters

momentum becomes speed

and before I can catch the middle

I have swung to the other side

Opposite contrapposto

My fathers slow low melody

lullabies me to a snails pace

His voice is rich and deep 

His volume is full and lovely 

The vibration resonates 

down in the souls of my feet

and drowns the seat of my soul 

with melancholy knumbness 

I could sleep there

for hours

days 

weeks

In that apathetic bed of depression

until the whole world 

just disappeared

An intoxicating hibernation

that holds the sweet kiss of death

which doesn't take very long 

Only one lifetime 

But then that leg starts to tingle

with pins and needles 

I begin to feel the sway

back the other way

This peg leg business 

does not make for a savvy sailor 

only a bitter pirate

A one eyed perspective 

with which to read the map

cheats you out of your rightful treasure 

How am I supposed to navigate

the polar codependent sea charts 

that have been unrolled

in this captains quarters

Which ropes do I pull

What knots should be undone

So I can raise sail 

Catch the wind 

Find my sea legs

the tenuous balance  

is in the curl of my toes

It uproots my feet

Flexes my knees

Arches my back 

Fills my lungs with salty air

Lifts my chin

and I look upward

For that is where I will find the center
submerged within each moment

It rests abreast the cutting edges of the wind

Nestled and protected In between the restless crests of waves

Cradled in the rolling reconstruction of the clouds
Inhaled between the exhales of serenaded notes

It is the still inside the honey spaces

It lies within the feeling of the sway