Fran Gardner

STUMBLE SONG
(Visiting Boston)

It's not the uneven,
the beautiful,
the red brick
of quaint old pavement
that trips you.
But your own body
betraying you,
Waiting
for an uncoordinated moment
to drop the foot, scuff the shoe.
Each time it's new, never expected--
never quite
what went before.

Your ankle aches
with many recoveries
from stumbled steps.
And then you trip, not on bricks, but on a crosswalk painted on asphalt.
The street is busy.
A policeman leans out the window of his car:
"You OK?" he yells.
But he stays inside
as you scramble up,
pushing your skirt down
to cover the brace,
unhurt yet bruised all over.

What will be the last stumble?
The last thing, ever--
Will it be a last step
Or a last stumble?

But of course,
It's not up to you.
It comes from a part of you
That you cannot know.

You can't know what
You only know that
Something
Will happen
When it happens.

Stress, you think,
Stress does it,
Slows the leg,
Brings the stumble.
You think about
How your hand hurts
From gripping the cane.
You think about the sky.
These are not stressful thoughts.
They just are thoughts.
But the stumble comes,
Anyway,
In a hotel hallway,
When your foot catches on the nap of the carpet
And you fall down.

* * *

COYOTE

Coyote is coming now, the trickster,
Yellow pelt tangled in purple streamers
Wrapped in a comet trail, full flash and glimmer,
Ready to trip me.
         But I've tripped already, too many times
         To welcome another scraped knee.

I can make my own tricks, Coyote.
I, too, can howl at the moon.
What's more, I can turn my back on it,
Let the silver wash down my hair.
         But first I hold my hand, fingers spread, palm outward,
         Supplicating, before the full disk. Warm.

No longer can the moon trick me, give me
False hopes, strength with no purpose.
No, neither may you nip at my tendons,
Or bear me up to the chariot--
         I draw a card: Temperance, a water sign,
         Forbearance and abstinence, nothing out of nothing.

I make my tricks, but I keep your gift, Coyote,
Laughing at the craziness of it all,
Sparrows aligned on a wire, the moon behind them
Round in feeding and intemperate in love.
         Just give me a little time, will you?
         Soon I'll put my head upon your breast.

Fran Gardner lives in Portland, Oregon, and has a diagnosis of primary progressive MS. Her byline has appeared on hundreds of news stories and commentaries in a 35-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor. Having retired early in a 2008 buyout, she is now free to work more on poetry and fiction.