Not Skipping

after Anne Boyer

I am not skipping stones across rivers. I am not skipping pebbles, even. I am not skipping across a hopscotch chalked on cement, one-legged on the one, two on two and three. I am not skipping down a grocery-store aisle chasing reflections of fluorescent lights. I am not skipping like a child, too. I am not skipping like someone without something to lose. I am not skipping down mountains because that might hurt my ankles. I am not skipping on even ground, either. I am not skipping on the unskippable, like clouds or stars or anything fuzzy and impossible. I am not skipping over black holes or past leaf-obscured pits. I am not skipping class. I am not skipping my medicine, not again, I am over that and I swallow them now. I am not skipping anything but I am especially not skipping garbage in creeks—the little pieces of plastic would just float in the deer piss anyway.