November 27, 2018

weren't you amazing?

That fall at the Embarcadero skating rink the year you turned 30 -
so cartoonishly inexpert on the ice, you could have slammed your skull 
as Cyndi Lauper burst from the speakers, the rhythm pushing you to attempt a speed
far outside your pay grade. You could have executed the most dramatic exit
as your pre-teen charges looked on, and would have made the morning papers,
or better. Weren't you amazing, then, keeping the tumble this side of tragedy,
merely bruising a hip as you smacked your palm down at the outside turn,
so that now you are holding that injury soft in your heart, with a tenderness you only grant
your failures. How strange, the body and its little divots of pain, the way time circles
each one like tree rings, and every grace you thought had left you only keeps blossoming.