Jacob had lived so long in the darkness with the Dragon Imelda that he thought nothing of the slightly sulfurous, fishy scent that accompanied her.

This was a home he accepted as he accepted the drip, drip, drip of distant water and the gentle drift of filtered light from somewhere far above.

His days were spent in pursuit of his studies. He was a maker of maps, routes of travel, measuring the darkness, the distance between here and there. Although he didn’t know where there was, and he didn’t yet know why he needed to know how to go.

When Jacob was a child, the Dragon Imelda began bedtime stories with, “Once upon a time, a lost prince…”

One night he asked, “Am I the prince?”

“You are the treasure,” she said.

He leaned his warm forehead against her cool, gray shoulder and with his finger traced a winding path along her varied scales.

Bending towards him she said, “You are my treasure, to protect and keep safe.”

“In the story,” he asked, “do I die?” He could feel her hot breath on his neck.

“No,” she said, “I do.”

If I never have a daughter/ these child bearing hips will sink into old womanhood, maybe never missing what they never had

If she never shows up/ I won’t wallow neither will I rejoice/there is no real loss or gain

If I never have a daughter/the leaves will still fall every October and I will still drink warm whiskey in black tea and think of you

My own mother stands in front of me and doesn’t see me/only the brown infant she birthed in mid-July

and I may never know what she means by that

I may never honor my sister by giving my daughter her middle name

I may never understand labor pain

If I never have a daughter/I can never feel the trouble of her toothache or diaper rash

I can never be held liable for waiting too long to take her to the ER; I’ve enough guilt of my own

My niece will cry out for me and I will still turn away; still ill-equipped and on the run, unable to soothe her deeply

She will want for me to stay, to be around at bed time and all I can offer is cheap sweets and weak promises

Tomorrow, next winter, soon/ Like the Easter bunny or Claus/ I am reliable but unnecessary

If I never have a daughter/ my belly will grow fat, not from housing new life, but from carbohydrates and Chinese food

The moon will continue to guide me through life/ I’ll be forever in its lunar prowess/ daughter or not, I’m woman still

Winters from now when the air is dry and grey/I’ll hum a daughter-less tune and wait for all my ghosts to come out and dance

On summer Saturdays it was grass gymnastics—

routines on pretend apparatus,

flips without a spring floor.

It hurt pounding prepubescent ankles and wrists

into unforgiving dirt without plushy mat cushion,

but this was the sweet spot between character and penance,

and there was instinct even then to focus training there.

I had makeshift drills:

dive-roll over lawn chairs or table-topped sisters,

cartwheel over jump ropes held a few feet off the ground.

But it was hard to get amplitude,

as the judges would call it.

I couldn’t elevate off backyard soil.

Coaches told me “mind over matter,” so I pretended

my sore foot made me Kerri Strug

and the wind-waving skin on our corner birch

was the encouraging hand of a Karolyi.

I told myself just one spotless handspring

and you’ll wear the laurels like Carly in Athens.

But I stayed heavy and clumsy until I abandoned my Olympians

and refigured myself as a Jesse White Tumbler.

I’d adjust my white suspenders on an all red outfit,

lug thin panel mats into the center lane of a stopped parade.

I’d run through warm-up sequences with my teammates

and give no thought to form.

Our handstands were bent-kneed and arch-backed,

no shoulder stretch or tucked-in chin.

But when it came time for the difficult skills,

we erupted without effort.

Saltos suspended for three mississippis;

four-trick passes stretched to six or seven.

Unlike the chalk-covered leotard-wearer

who gets height with hard arm swings toward the rafters,

with grimaces and repetitions,

with tight, hollow-bodied, upward shoves,

we lift simply from the chest.

We initiate flips with our sternums,

which cannot squeeze or strain.

We will our centers into the sky with inevitable velocity—

aortas magnetized to the tops of skyscrapers,

ribcages buoyed on Chicago smog.

And with all that energy concentrated at the heart,

our faces have no choice but to stay calm,

our limbs no choice but to swing light.

We float easy above our families and futures,

suspend over dirty cement.

And when we land we’re not judged but applauded

by kids on the curb with sticky hands

and melted chocolate on their shirts

and not even a faint awareness

of deduction or injury.