An Anna Enquist poem

CONVALESCENT HOME NEXT TO THE PARK

Grass for fatigued feet, sky made for licking,

water – what swims and, chittering, tumbles along

observing children’s book rules. Paradise.

They sigh in satisfaction over the grill, lounge

lazily around the music tent, dance in short trousers

by the drums. Riding stable, tennis court.

Behind the highest wall lurk the cracked up,

the legless. They quietly glide to their garden

on caster beds and wheelchairs. The goal for today

was an extra step, was an extra ounce. Now the struggle

for bodily control falters, now those still with use

of an arm shakingly lift a mug with its straw

for a sip. In their silence the park rises up,

inescapable: cartwheels, roller skates, dogs,

a ball. They, in their war chariots, bow their heads.

They listen numbly to a song that’s now alien:

running feet, a horse rearing in its box.