‘Balancing Act’
The awkward choreography
of my father’s pirouette
on the slick bathroom floor
brought no applause, no encore.
Hours later the ER doctor
read the litany of injuries:
broken vertebrae, cracked ribs
bruised face ...
A week of intensive care,
surgery and then the nursing home.
I find him tangled in bed sheets,
he has lost twenty-five pounds
and speaks in a
whisper -
All the way from Alaska to see this old man.
I want to deliver him home,
repay a lifetime of kindness.
I pull a pair of clean socks
over his swollen feet
sit down by the bed
read the sports page aloud
watch him watching me
as I try to balance
life’s delicate scale.
‘Noisy Water’ readings
“Balancing Act” is included in “Noisy Water: Poems from Whatcom County, Washington,” a new collection of work by 101 poets with close ties to the county. Public readings by contributors to the collection will be Feb. 5 at Deming Library, Feb. 9 at South Whatcom Library (Sudden Valley), Feb. 20 at Lummi Island Library, March 22 at Ferndale Library and March 31 at Everson Library. All readings are 7 p.m., except Lummi Island Library, which starts 7:30 p.m. Luther Allen and J.J. Kleinberg edited “Noisy Water.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 2:45 AM with the headline "‘Balancing Act’."