These hands
Written on by life
Will write
With only my words
This death I’ve died
A thousand times
Is mine alone

This skin
That stood out in fields
Alone
That has drowned in  sees
Alone
That has scarred from
Words and glances

These veins
Pumping through
This life force
The blood that brought
The marrow to the bone
That brought a life
That was never mine
Into the fabric of this body
Into the struggle, the effort
The wisdom, the peace

The day I was launched off my feet
Sleep crawling
To side lines
That I might never leave
The debris
Has scattered into memories
Forgotten
Even by themselves

These lungs
Have whispered prayers
Bellowed poems
And swallowed pride
Choking on the ghost of death
One last time

These bones have set
In crooked ways
A skeleton
That’s lost
The art of support
Stiffened from
Bracing for impact

From the very day
That I decided
That if I can’t shine
I’ll slay
Support myself in every which way
Support this weight
That I’ve hoisted on my shoulders
These boulders
That I’ll stand up

These feet
Leaving no trace
But the distance between us,
Will go
Where no-one will find me
Will dance through ditches
Curve into corners
Coast out of questions
Throttle and choke
The fear

Seven years old
I’m playing outside
A girl I’ve been next door to for two years
Wears a cape like mine
Red
Red like the blood that screams
As it desperately tries to force its way to my brain
A metal slide I used to have
Holds my cape prisoner
Struggling dreams of if it would look like I was flying
If only it flew up and caught the wind
Instead of sink down and grasp my neck
Her mouth is open
Tears in her eyes
I can’t hear her screams
Over the helpless gasping of mine
As vision begins to fade a silver flash escapes the backdoor
My grandma darts down the stairs
Eyelids descend like time in an hourglass
My body rises to the heavens
I think this is it

            
                
                           “Grandma?”

It was July of '64, I think
not long after a bunch of ******* sick with greed, hate and vengeance masked as patriotism  
blew the President's head off
I was trying to hold onto my childhood at 9
it became rather difficult after that
I saw that famous news guy take off his glasses and weep before the nation
on our 25 inch black and white Zenith
I looked at that guy like a dog looks at something completely askew
something not at all normal that has just entered it's world

I was outside, behind my house in Southeast D.C.
Anacostia
playing along the incline where the coal made it's way from the
old apartment building's basement window opening
there was always some that they would spill when loading up
to feed the giant furnace
Tommy Arthur, who had criminal written all over him at 16
his greased back jet black hair, Banlon shirts, baggy grey slacks and high-top All Stars walked by with a friend
stopped to light his Lucky Strike
and asked me to show him how I could jump from one tree to another
I had done it 100 times, no big deal
my chance to show off for the town's bad ***
I reached the top and took my usual look around
there was the roof of my house, Sam's Market on the corner,
Baby and her brother Stinky playing on their porch
Baby still had the cast on her leg from the car that sent her flying
She was running across U Street to make it safely to base during a game of 'hide and seek'
Stinky...trust me, you don't want to know why he has that name.
I turned toward the tree limb belonging to the tree that grew alongside this one
it was an easy jump really, not more than 4 or 5 feet
perhaps I was a bit too cocky
after all, this was Tommy Arthur
other than the upper half of my 2 middle fingers on the right hand
and even less of the left, nothing touched limb
I was woefully short
I saw ground coming quickly
laced with broken coal chunks and little else
I smacked the hill face first
awkwardly twisting slightly to the right just prior to impact
Tommy and his friend, mouths agape
respectfully asked if I was allright
just before leaving
instinctively smelling trouble
blood was shooting from an opening above my left eye
at the upper corner of my forehead just below the hairline
my white tee shirt was quickly soaked and bright red
It was quite a relief when the cobwebs cleared and I realized I was alive
and even more incredibly, suffered no broken bones as far as I could tell
seeing that I was facing no more than a few stitches to close a head wound
my attention now turned to what good use I could make of my horrific appearance
besides having a great story to tell my buddies

I started walking towards the backyard gate
which was just a matter of 20 or 30 feet
I thought about what I'd do once I reached the house
but it all played out perfectly
as I climbed the steps to the back porch
and slowly made my way to the kitchen just inside
I see Mom with her back to me and she's frying chicken
I slowly enter and remain poised just inside the kitchen entrance
after a minute or so she turns with a pan of frying *******, wings and thighs
she sees her youngest son with a fully bloodied tee shirt
and blood spewing from his head
a chicken wing flew past me and I believe cleared the porch
other chicken parts and grease were strewn about the kitchen, dining room
and hallway
I was shown little sympathy for my wound
and after some very intense cleaning up was taken to Dr Phillips for stitches
Dr Phillips was never surprised to see me

The scar remains after 53 years
I returned once or twice and drove past the house
and looked at those trees I had climbed so many times

on that July day in 1964
I had fallen nearly 3 stories
landed head first into hard ground
and walked home with no more than a cut
all logic says I should have broken my neck
but in my life logic plays a very small part

God waited for Abraham's arm to be actually starting down, the biceps fully tensed.

Nothing short would do; in extremity, we learn what's true.

With a good job, a good marriage, a fine son, I had everything one could expect.  
And yet there was a lingering dissatisfaction; a malaise.
It seemed, deep down, that I didn't really feel or believe in anything.

.........                                             ­                                 
On Saturday morning, August 11, 1990, my three-year-old son and I rounded the corner at the south end of the block where we live.  We were out for a walk.  (He had been born through in-vitro fertilization, everything else had failed -- including several previous in-vitro attempts.)  He was riding his tricycle -- it's amazing how fast a three-year-old can go on a tricycle with big wheels. . . .  The house next to the corner had tall bushes growing right out to the sidewalk.  As we passed the house, my son speeded up.  My attention was diverted to men working across the street trimming trees.  Their chainsaws drowned out the sound of a car backing out of the driveway next to the house with the bushes.  The car was moving slowly and I can see in the slowest of slow motion -- I screamed, but I'm not sure just when (there's no sound track to this movie) -- the car backing into the left handlebar of the tricycle, tilting it over to the right, my son breaking his fall with his right hand.   (As low to the ground as he and the tricycle were, they could not be visible in the driver's rearview mirror at this point.)  And, then, the car stopping.  Did the car stop because of my scream?  Or had the old man driving the car seen my son at the last second before he disappeared behind the car?
.......

I learned instantly with the terrible weight of that tire inches from my son's head, that I wanted with a giant, horrible wanting for this boy to grow up healthy and to have children of his own who would, in turn, have children of their own, and that having my wife hate me for losing him would be unbearable.

All the unfairnesses I had suffered in life -- ALL of them --
instantly became meaningless. Everything was clear.
This is what I wanted; this is what I believed.

We had stopped at Bennys I got him some fries
A nice day for a drive not a cloud in the sky
We got in the truck I checked his seat twice
I’m forever greatful for my wifes advice
The diesel engine purred as I shifted gears
To my grandmas house no thoughts of fear
I hear a bang and in a flash
We rolled and rolled crash and bash
I count the hits one two three
windows exploding around me
I swing out the door hung from my belt
We hit dirt and highway the hardest ive felt
Time seemed to pause or maybe just slow
With the earths every trouncing blow
Upside-down truck upon my head
How the **** am I not dead
Around my ribs i feel the steels bite
The crash is over but now is the fight
My son is alive I can hear him cry
He is to young to remember goodbye
I must get to him i must pull him out
Steel digging deeper as i struggle about
My breath is laborious I’m struggling for air
The pain is hellish too atrocious to bear
Then she laid on the road infront of me
A woman who was scared but strong for me
I coughed up blood and gasped for air
She squeezed my hand and said a prayer
Blood flowed and filled my eyes and ears
The world turned red as blood met tears
Slowly a silance began to loom
Another sign of an ominous doom
She screamed the trucks are coming they are on their way
Oh lord oh lord don’t take this man away
You stay with me you stay with your son
You can’t leave now his lifes just begun
My body shudders as it gasps a wheeze
I feel a cold chill i hoped was a breeze
It has been too long since I’ve taken a breath
What lays ahead life after death.

Ten months ago today
You fell. Your head
Smacked and cracked on my surface.
My hard and rough surface.
I made you sleep,
But you didn't wake
For days.
They removed your skull,
They removed your hair.
They removed you from your dignity.
There's nothing that you can do
But wait for the results.
You finally wake up,
You remember a lot,
There's also a lot that you forgot.
Rage, frustration, the "hurry up and wait" system,
Surgery after surgery after surgery after surgery.
The scar they left,
Slicing your head open so many times.
It's tender and inflamed.
It's never going away.
There's something I have to say.
And that's I'm really really sorry I did this to you.