To avoid loose
structure, she steps around
the porous stretches
of your concrete skin. 

Call it superstition—don’t
step on the crack in any sidewalk.
She calls it the wise
way to construct 

a commitment from you
in a faithless world. If 

she believes you can
hold her up, will she believe
you will? Strike out
the ending and the sag 

in the middle, she seeks
a taut you, abhors
the tremulous, falls asleep
to the vibrations rising 

through the grate,
a compressed force
she would not dare deny.