Backflips

“...that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since –until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.”

Mid blue mat and a queen, all these hands at the sole of her Asic. Bare legs strong, glistening blond, balancing into scorpion, little shake. Lot of curl: hair helixing high, and the way her back bends back, almost spineless. She’s grabbing her toe and grabbing me elsewhere – thin center of spanx spanking me backward. Cheerleading mamas scream and whap their pom-poms blue and white in competition, fight, fight! I brush long brown behind my ear, listen closer for the name of the floating girl to escape proud ma’s lips, give hint. No cursive stitch in Y.E.S. uniform to declare skinny love, even when I squint. When I squint, gym lights blur into halos and my angel darts upward, higher than goals, lands in the arms of to-be women, not this woman, here without child, here for this child, first seen days ago rolling hills, grass stains on her knees, dirt in laughing teeth, no longer baby. My hands slip as I grip the edge of wooden bleacher. The pops and glitch of the routine’s mix turn from broken robot to Taylor Swift and the girls are so sharp, geometric. Arms triangles, V, clapping. Bodies tiny lines, straight, simple. Void yet of the hips that I wear, worn with man touch, and now different longing. For a second I lose bright star to a switch of formation. But, ah, ah, again she smiles and splits. I split time, fast forward to seesaws, merry-go-rounds, babysitting, collarbones, applesauce, cherries. There must be sweat. It must feel cool on her forehead. There must be a tip to this growing pyramid. A child must be a held. A buzzer must be buzzing.