Tuesday, August 19, 2008

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.

160808

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