A Poem: Buckler

Inculcate the toddler
to state with solemnity
each time safety harnesses click
at chest and crotch:
"Buckle. It's the Law."

Teach her to insist on it
To demand it
No matter what car
or who's driving.

Repetition, in time, will yield
anxiety and alarum
in the absence of its embrace,
adjusted to the correct
level of constriction.

Be diligent,
vigilant
in this.

"Buckle."

While she is young,
and there is still time,
convince her also
that you are Atlas,
that your spine could support the world,
turn it at will,
backwards or forwards,
even make it stop on a dime,
if you wanted to.

Deny gravity and age
their inevitability.
Conceal lordosis
with Salonpas,
chronic fatigue with
double espresso.

Pretend not to hear
a second meaning
in the words
she recites and echoes
over and over
back to you:

"Buckle. It's the Law."