Parkour

He’s a walking expiration date.
He leaps loose-limbed parabolas
Across the courtyard,
Sends his body like a yo-yo to skate
Free along the gravity of walls
Before he goes flying,
Half-way up a flagpole before I shout
“Impossible,”
He only trips a little,
Brief points like pins in the wind,
And I’m afraid of heights.

Yesterday when he was in the tree
Playing Babel with his bluffing brother,
The leaves shook and broken branches
Smashed up through my chicken feathers
To nestle there,
Chiseled bamboo rods in the blankets
Of my isolation, and I saw all the prepositions
Woven like hay into his hair.

Sometimes when the blood makes beads
Like garnets in the craggy fault lines of his scrapes
And they’re safe to touch,
I sit and watch the pride brown his skin,
See recklessness unfurl across his forehead
Just beyond my reach.