Fear in the Bones 

1
My father takes short, quick steps, 
insistent he doesn’t need a cane. 
I stay close to him in case he falls, 
feeling my own aging ailments – 
the knee crick that randomly
morphs to a hobble or the ache
in my lower back that won’t quit.
Late middle age has crept into 
my body like the knock in my car’s 
front end I can no longer ignore.

2
Remember the Twin Towers falling
into themselves? How we watched 
in disbelief the TV loop of the collapses
that each time twisted our stomachs?
Remember the people who jumped?
Holding hands, falling one hundred stories,
women’s dresses flapping, hairdos unfurled,
men’s ties snapping like banners at a county fair
on a breezy September day when all is right
with the world and your kids eat cotton candy.

3
This spring we’ve watched floods drive
people from their homes, kept farmers 
off fields. Each week we figure the forecast 
will have some sun but it’s always rain,
the earth so full of water you’d think it’d burst.
It’s hard to square drought in Texas with flooding
next door in Louisiana where the Mississippi’s
been diverted to save cities from the onslaught.
People move everything to their second floors 
even though high water will crest at over twenty feet.

4
My sister-in-law’s husband has multiple myeloma.
His regimen is daily trips for a chemo drip
while wondering how he’s going to pay for it
and be out of work for at least a year.
Get-well cards make him feel remembered 
but won’t pay for the expansion to his business 
he just completed or guide his new partner 
through a network she doesn’t know. But cancer 
is selfish, demanding all his time, like the old woman 
at the grocery who insists she’s been shorted a penny.

5
Imagine the ancients rolling their eyes at how
we’re mucking it up. But even they didn’t realize
that while they fed slaves to the lions and lifted 
their togas so servant girls could earn their keep,
the blood running into the sands of the Coliseum
spelled the end for them. But the Barbarians 
next didn’t fare so well, either. Guess that’s
the way things cycle through. Each of us gets
our chance. Just keep an eye over your shoulder
so you’ll know when your shadow’s about to catch up.