When I take life at a purposeful stride
things get broken: the cheap
wine glass or the crystal strikes
the faucet, a mug loses its handle.
It wasn’t a mugging, wasn’t
a loose carpet caused my broken hip.
Steep trail, view of the sea, a sudden
acquaintance with a very rude rock.

Too surprised to be insulted,
with only one leg to stand on, I was
dependent on the kindness of strangers,
aides who came at my call, nurses
dispensing pills I need not count,
breakfast served me in bed, therapists
who said, “Your work is to rest.”
A novelty, this focus on myself.

Home again, exercises blend
with household tasks. A book
is surprisingly heavy, the big skillet
a challenge to lift. Adaptations
must be made. Then one by one
they are abandoned. Good progress,
good progress: I go back on a trail,
regain my purposeful stride.

Recalling the gifts of care, as I choose
a mug for tea, I must remind myself
of pain, ice packs, unsteady feet, cries
in the corridor, to quell my sense
of loss in being “whole” again,
the center of no one’s attention.

—

Ellen Roberts Young is a member of the writing community in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She has published two chapbooks with Finishing Line Press, Accidents (2004) and The Map of Longing (2009).  Her first full-length book of poetry is Made and Remade, (WordTech Editions, 2014).  She is co-editor of Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders Journal and blogs intermittently at www.freethoughtandmetaphor.com.