Walking Stick
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
It would be unwise I think to walk through a door with you:
Wind at our backs, hair blown; moment when our dialogue
Pauses after you finally ask me about my walking stick.
I tell you why I have it, where I got it, wood type and how long
It took to carve, to whittle the truth down for a crip.
You believed I should have 100,000 and you told me you could
Get them made at cost and sourced from domestic logs
And I said something about all the wood needed, loss of green,
Of homes, and one of your people mentions deforestation.
The moment is not ripe, though tension is on your CV.
Once upon a time, on a playground in an old field, we sang
And created chalk forests on surfaces full of ogres behind
Trees and goblins running around. We sang with sand
At lunch, mostly songs of bears and favorite shows, apples
And licorice…long before you chipped your tooth.
My irregular, cripped gait now. We were simply playground
Savants and once at recess time we did speak of marriage
And of a very large pumpkin tree, jello pool, walking
Sticks for our trip seeing the world. We dreamed of boats
And we sang of this too…so close we were to going.
Whet teeth and your skinned knee, my broken home, secrets
Notes pictures promises sunburn land. Almost 50 years and
Here we are old friend, neither of us in the water where
We are everyone…
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About the Author
Sean J. Mahoney believes that Judas was a way better singer than Jesus. He trusts in salsa (the 7th food group), dark chocolate, and CBD. Sean has had work published at Poets Reading the News, The Good Men Project, Nine Mile Literary Magazine, Amsterdam Quarterly, and Wordgathering, and a score of other public walls. Sean has worked as a prose editor at Wordgathering for almost four years, now. He live in Santa Ana, California with Dianne, her mother, three dogs, and four renters. There is a large garden and two trees with big bitter oranges that look more lemon-like. Sean helped create the Disability Literature Consortium, roots for Tardigrades, and syncs to Little Shop of Horrors at least twice a year.