J. F. Pritchard

Guildford Lake

Listen to Audio Version read by Sean Mahoney.

It's ninety-nine degrees, &
No sweat, the body won't allow it.
A car with four flats, no radiator, but
Pistons still sorta pump.

Able-bodied memories like rust rot,
Stick like dead relatives—
Shit not done, grandeur not realized, all
Lionized by here & now.

The lake pokes his mind's eye, taunts:
Can't feel mud on toes or
Weightless flips, no
Scooping shells.

"12 feet, caution" on the dock's edge.
A crazy thought curls his smirk, there's
No one 'round to see. A
Desperate feeling tingles

In his hands. Emboldened
He unstraps straps, unbuckles buckles.
Grabs the power-chair joystick races onwards—
In fact, off wards the dock—yelling "cannonball!"

Joseph Pritchard is a twenty-four year old, quadriplegic, Ohioan, who attends Kent, Salem and is working on a major in English, while working as a writing tutor on campus. Pritchard won the 2015 Ulen Anna Engleman Creative Writing award. He states, "I've been passionate about poetry ever since my first workshop. I enjoy writing about place--specifically, the profound meaning, truth, situations and beauty found in the Rust Belt and the small towns struggling with identity."