Cripple

Everything in his life
hinges now
on that minute, over so
quickly,
the gust took him,
blew him across the air, and
dumped him on the ground
– crumpled beneath his ‘chute
like a fistful of newspaper.

After they disentangled him,
after the hospital, the doctors,
the morphine, the pain –
the nightmares came,
waking him in the dark
gasping –
turned back on himself
like a embryo,
but one unable to grow
a new spine.

For her –
loving him is harder
than loving herself.

His wheelchair
comes between them.
Iron-wheeled, squat –
implacable as a gaoler,
while his jealousy fastens
limpet-like
on the backs of the men
who drift around her,
drones, waiting for their queen to
choose.

She wonders:
if he could take her properly
– show her who’s boss
– would it make him softer,
slower to impugn
her desire?

Yet – as she dances alone
at the jazz concert –
she keeps him in the
corner of her eye.
Seated, nursing a Savannah plugged with lemon.

Watches him
like sailors, finding their way at night,
might look up
as the stars above them
wheel and turn
– gleaming, celestial,
purer than the water that reflects them −

form a compass
to map
a way
home.

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