Form

Pull like you want to make your shoulder blades 
kiss, says the trainer; hinge at the hips. Align 
the body with its purpose, so the weights
raise you more than drive you into the ground.
I talk about such things in my classrooms too— 
about how form is everything, but as we drive 
toward the goal of the unutterable, sometimes 
it's what we shed that makes a line shear sharper. 
I admit I like the idea of shoulders kissing;
rather, the image of the scapula like a frame, 
stretching the trapezius and its muscle-red 
ripples like a sail or an awning— both, parts
of the same mechanism to describe  
what rowing must feel like, or flying.