You Would Carry Me

Published in Poets’ Choice anthology Close Friends and Relatives March 2021

We used to walk in these woods

together as a family,

all five of us.

Only a few steps in,

I would whine, 

“My legs hurt.

Pick me up.

Carry me.

My legs hurt.”

Even though we all knew

my legs could handle the hike,

you would pick me up

and put me on

your back

         sometimes.

I would cling to you

with my tiny arms wrapped

around your barrel-chest

like a leech.

I could smell the mortar 

still lingering on you after

a long day of laying block.

With me on your back, we’d

walk down the dirt path

churned up from your tractor’s tires. 

We’d pass the wrecked pick-up truck, crashed

into a tree way before my time,

with the front windshield shattered that

someone eventually scrapped for

a couple hundred bucks.

Then down to the pond where

you told us you used to throw

parties at when you were in 

high school.

The cattails that bordered the pond

reached above us even with me

clutching on your back. 

They’re all dead now

those cattails,

brown and burnt from the sun.

As I walk through these same woods now,

alone,

I go stand on the dock and

feel the chill winter wind push

the unfrozen water toward me in

tiny ripples.

I think about you

         a lot

now that the cancer 

rotted away your bones and organs after six years,

spreading like wildfire and covering you from head to toe.

You lost your strength.

You lost your big frame.

You lost your walking ability.

You lost your hair.

We lost you.

And now that you’re gone,

I wonder: how do I carry the family

like you would carry me?