we cheer the fight to supress the flight,
teach him to crawl and run and shake
it off when he falls;
his instincts are good, but we know better;

our minds know better than our bodies.
swim, dive, dip your head beneath the waves,
touch the bottom with your toes.
let your lungs have their say, but take it
with a grain of salt.

all of our urging can’t compete with common sense
and inklings of physics and chemistry and biology;
a 38-inch child in 40-inch water:

‘but that’s how you die!’