Do the drop-step

I swear it started as a joke, this limping. It started
With that amusing stunt I called the "drop-step",
Which I first learned from Marcello Mastrianni
In the movie "8 1/2". And that's back in college,
When I was quite a character, I guess, walking
To class down West Fourth Street past the clocks
In store windows that gained fifteen minutes,
I swear, as I went. Sometimes knocking the heads
Off daisies in flowerpots. With the tip of my
Umbrella. Years later, to amuse or alarm complete
Strangers, I revived the drop-step, coming back
From the corner store. You have to time it right.
- from "Dictates of Talk (III)" by Edward Williams.

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