CRITICA

(for Ralph)

The Jiu Jitsu teacher in the safe falling class 
tells us to keep rolling, demonstrates how 

to befriend the ground with suppleness, no 
clunky stops.  Ezra Klein says we are now living 

in a liquid moment of chaos no ready theory 
can contain. Perhaps we need our own liquidity. 

I remember my ski instructor at the top 
of a precipitous black diamond slope suggesting 

I navigate the moguls the way water would, 
my body loosening to hug the curves, becoming 

the fluidity of movement rather than the thing 
that moves. I know what it’s like to aim down 

the fall line, dance back and forth across it, in play 
with gravity’s pull. But now you, setting your sights 

on the base of your last mountain, show me 
what it means to live knowing that love’s certainty 

is the only ground from which to push off, 
plant your poles, lift your heels, and go.