Fear's merry-go-round begins its waltz.
I don old sweats and you wince when I tell
you I've spent an hour and beyond,
gristing weak bones in the mill of a gym,
swimming a portion of a mile, cycling farther
than guts should take what fate has left.
I laugh at the tale of my limp, a spindly siren
on the hind end of a busy mouse
running behind mortality's fridge.
Seeking a corner of shade from eyes
where I can sing boldly with my lousy voice
and not be heard. Reveling in merely
moving drinking sap from dying tree.
We'll never agree on "cautiousness."
You try but cannot fathom hissy fits
at mention of a wheelchair.
It grates me up like fingertips
against that feeble metal frame
wrestling with a cube of cheese.
They're caskets to me, not some facile
resting place. If I stay the china doll
you want to park against thick glass,
safe and clovered, no skinned knee
full of rocks, no sunlit smiles from
pushing hills with Cannondales.
I'll pinch out as a candle
would do in falling rain.
Stillness isn't the pond of dreams.
Not mine. It's a river of risk that beckons me,
fills my veins with blueberry juice
of summers hanging by a thread.
I'd gather dust upon a shelf,
some waxen entity of death.
Will and motion: two-faced sides
of string-less kites acquainted
with both wind and dirt.
A little Clorox in the wash
will clean off blood.
I live for wearing out my clothes.
by Janet I. Buck
