I see him trip
Standing erect a hundred or so yards away
I witness his ludicrous struggle to get up,
Pissed, straddled between
Two happy hour bars,
There on the road immobilizing the
Impatient, unimportant traffic
People rush past him on their way home from work
Or maybe shopping
Daring not a glance his way lest
They invite his irrational aggression
Nothing to do with them
“Not my problem either” I thought,
Still I have to get by him
Stare at the ground, that’s best
Yet my craven eyes could not obey
And stubbornly sought him out
“What’s he doing now?
Oh Christ he’s getting up and walking back to the pavement.
I’ll have to pass right by him”
But then I see that his ungainly gait has purpose
Direct and true it guides him back to safety
This is not the exaggerated orbit of the drunk
And now the penny drops
Immediate penance, Catholicism’s greatest tranquiliser, kicks in.
“Are you hurt?
Can I help you across the road?” I beg.
“It’s okay”, he said, absolving me,
“My legs are twisted”
“Only your legs”, I replied.
“How lucky”
Comments
Sooz006 | February 3, 2008 - 12:33
Wow, fantastic. This one really hit a nerve with me.
While in prague this year we saw the same man twice. the first time was in the early hours of the morning and we giggled as he bounced from wall to wall and had terrible problems staying upright.
The second was at mid-day and we realised the poor man wasn't drunk, he had some awful motor neurone or balance aflliction. I would love to have talked to him to find out what it was. I don't suppose many people talked to him, but he was bouncing from wall to wall with purpose and it would have been rude to stop him in the street for possibly goulish purposes. I thought about him a lot that week, how he goes about job interviews, how he is accepted by his peers. I don't think I'll ever forget that man and this poem brought him back to me again perfectly. Beautifully written.