I slept poorly last night,
a night of tremulous dreams
and not much rest.

Poorly, an odd adverb.
The old sleep poorly.
How strange to be that old
and dream young dreams.

I dreamt I was alone
on the floor of the Dojo,
failing my next belt test.

My fading body would not flow:
it stumbled, faltered and forgot.

Beneath my teacher's gaze,
I tasted my failure as if a kid.

I have not feared failure
in the decades since I became one.

But again I knew the metallic
panic of inadequacy,
like the stricken adolescent
who prefers stillness to misstep.

I miscarried and once more
knew the terror of it,
as if I were fourteen,
at a school dance,
wearing the wrong shoes.

Where do these
stabbing visions
originate?
How does fear
stop our hearts?

I do not know these answers,
only that I slept poorly last night
and had not much rest.

  ~mce