"Finally," she thinks,
"I am finally punctuated by these

parentheses of myself.  As if only now,
only in this translucent egg,

have I learned how to walk."
And with every revolution

she grows more resistant to the way we parse
the syntax of those first steps:

the rope building its arch overhead
at the same time it slips beneath; the soles

of her tennis shoes pressed flat to the blacktop
even as they spring in midair.  So to watch her is

to take a photograph of a fugue
released from tempo.  But suddenly

she crosses her wrists and ties a knot
in all this forgetfulness-by such clockwise

counterpoint reminding us
(and her too, if it trips her up)

it's time she's so blithely keeping,
so obliviously kept by.