Diving child

A child dives out of its mother's arms and heads headfirst for the concrete path at her feet.
She catches her by the ankles just as she is about to re-arrange her brains on a busy city street.
The child goes over the mother's shoulder in this manoeuvre. The tall slim mother catches the falling ankle, sight unseen.
I say: it was close; she says yes and laughs; someday I will miss.
Are you circus people, I ask; no she says it's just something she likes to do.
This she says as if her flying daughter is a household cat that likes to wrap itself around her ankles at night.
I look at the child whose eyes are aged beyond reason.
She was here before it seems and perhaps was an acrobat who used to swing upside down and view the world from there.
Hello I say to the child; she smiles and turns her head away, bored of the ages-old question.
Who are you and why do you do that.
Why not; she would say if she was old enough to speak; but she is not and the conversation with her mother is impossible to resume.
There is little else to say to a pair of falling women on a busy street.
I move on, and try not to stumble on the cracked pavement.
Storytelling here