I couldn’t manage a lotus position,
so I tried you, my bare feet reaching
for the stained ceiling of my apartment  
sitar music and stale **** smoke  
there with me  

like the dwellings
of a million mid-century bohemians  
who tried transcendence long
enough to get hungry    

when I now try you,  
Salamba Sarvangasana,  
I get a bit dizzy--spinning
a reaping reminder I have passed
nearly sixty-four years  

looking up, at cleaner plaster  
I no longer hear the music; the grass is gone,
replaced  by fumes perhaps more beguiling  

then I fall  
never able to pronounce your name  
ever aware my feet could not remain
airborne forever