Risk

My teacher says,
You've got to stink first.

I tell her, I don't have time to stink -
at 64 years old
I go directly to perfection
or I go nowhere.

Perfection is nowhere,
she says, So stink.
Stink like a beginner,
stink like decaying flesh,
old blood,
cold sweat,
she says,
I know a woman who's eighty-six,
last year she learned to dive.


Lisa Colt