in his grandmother’s journal,
the image sticks in our minds
of the long and lanky legs
of our six-foot two son flailing
through the wet Washington
air like the wings of a hapless
heron as he falls thirty feet
and lands with a thud
on the hard concrete pavement.
We can still hear his voice woozy
and wavy as he fights his way
through the anesthesia following
the surgery to repair shattered bones
in his hip and both wrists. I rolled
like they taught me in the military
parachute training or I’d be dead.
We can still see him crawling
on his hands and knees to lift
himself into the truck to drive
his son to school and then sitting
in a wheelchair on the sidelines
as his son hits a homerun
in Little League Baseball.
Do you remember the date
you fell from the roof? we ask
as he calls on his speaker phone
as his weakened wrists
at forty-six steer the rig
through the rush hour
and his hip full of hardware
hurts in the humidity. Nope,
he says, but I can’t complain
since I lived to see my boy
turn twenty-two in May.
Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published several poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields by Flutter Press and What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say (to read a book review click here) and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob now available from Kelsay Books. Her work has also appeared in One Art, Mad Swirl, The Drabble, Gleam, Spillwords, Muddy River Poetry Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review and The Song Is…
Sharon's book review of Carolynn Kingyens' poetry collection Coupling was recently published by Across the Margin. Click here to check it out.
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