I curse, cradle him.
How dare he wither to such a state that
the bathroom recedes to light year distances?
That fecal smell, he
averts his dimming eyes.
I give him a rare kiss.
"A man's a man," he always said,
but now pain parts the curtains of our proprieties.
"A man's a man," once with one arm
he picked up a seven year old who had scraped his knee,
"A man's a man," he said
and no tears dared come from me.
But now the crumpled bed sheet pinching his back brings groans.
On the back of his hand, five freckled spots
have measured his age with an ever darkening hue.
I link hands and see my inheritance;
his fingers part around the same design
that now faintly dawns in my skin.
I jerk my hand away.
Now mother comes, I yield my place.
Ever tidy, even now, I see her silhouette
against the sterile hospital lamp.
Napkins here, water glass there,
"Damn it woman for thirty years you've never stopped."
Then he winks at me and touches her.
Their arms link to form an L
which half frames the lamp that now
glares much too brightly.

THE CHAMPION RETIRES

Pity Goliath, scarecrow of the Philistines,
wide shield that hid a thousand quaking men.
Baal's champion, he made thunder
on command.
Skin tough as a shark's, dagger teeth, nine feet tall,
he was condemned never to look up at any man
even his king.
Trotted out like a standard before every battle,
he saved the hides of all the warriors
who could wet their pants in secret.
How many times did he answer the call,
"Hey Goliath, front and center?"
Caught in the work-a-day rut of killing,
how many times did he yell
his carefully rehearsed threats?
Never could his knees buckle, never
could anyone see his sword vacillate in his trembling hand.

And that shepherd boy, approaching,
to just inches short of his long shadow, that shepherd boy,
surely Goliath must have seen the stones picked up,
surely he must have seen the sling swung
in deadly circles, surely
he must have heard the rock swooshing like Baal's bad breath,
surely he had a lifetime of shunting spears and arrows
with a flick of his mighty shield,
a shield that became too heavy to lift.

Poetry Magazine