How to Thrive in Quicksand

Do not stand the way you were taught to stand.
Standing belongs to solid ground;
this is something else.

Open your arms.
Open your hands.
Become, for a little while, a starfish.
Yes, a starfish.

The sea solved this
long before you arrived.

Breathe slowly.
For plunggy panic speaks 

with perfect confidence
and is almost always wrong.

Trust the physics,
before you trust your fear.

The more of yourself
the sand is allowed to meet,
the less it must drink.