Walking Backwards - Elizabeth Weld Nolan

When the big toe reaches back,
supporting knee slightly bent,
the very space behind
seen as oblique from the eye’s corner
opens in air and shadow and light
informing the brain of the body’s
circumference that it is 360 degrees
and not flat front or flat back
and that one twist of the hip
arms swaying like parachute bones
turns back into front and so
it starts again