Published Poems

Dad’s Hip Fracture

Dad’s Hip Fracture

It took only one slip from your chair

to make your life as fragile as the broken bone.

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up

no laughs or sniggers

from the television audience,

this time it is real.

Two

            from   

                        Physical Therapy          

            come            

                        to                          up.

                                    lift you

I know that you will not walk again,

Curled up like an autumn leaf,

you sleep. The pump that carried you

through 89 years, failing. For the last time,

it trickles the blood uphill. Your last breath

so weak it could not puff out a candle.

                                                The Broken Plate 2020