I had that dream where I was falling

the one ubiquitous in us all,

that brief REM engagement

where we can remember holding onto

the branches of ancestral trees –

and letting go, embracing

our subconscious flexing metaphor

for our genetic fractalization.

Even when the Australopithecus

first walked upright, she remembered too.

Remembered the small gibbering, almost-ape

that was the arboreal Soviet gymnast of

four million years ago,

holding tight with toes to that

extension of the earth,

50 feet above the ground

eyeballs flittering under tiny black lids

dreaming the same dream as me.