Even then Dad’s knees were bad,
wincing as he crouched behind
the makeshift home plate
in our suburban cul-de-sac
which to me was as grand
as Yankee stadium, the neighbors,
I swear, crowding on balconies
to watch greatness unfold.
I did not notice how hard it was
for him to chase wild pitches
as they bounced, time and again,
into the hedges, nor the look
that would pass over his face
as he recalled the responsibilities
lying in wait for him at home.
By the time of his double knee
replacement I had gone from
baseball to tennis to poetry to
running a nonprofit that would,
if not save the world, at least heal
the damage I’d done it…
I realized I was not great
slowly, the way knees go bad.
First there’s the ache a pill
can hold at bay. Then two.
Then pain leaks through
the patched seams of your life
and you know there is only
relief in last resorts
but you are afraid,
you shiver until the muscles
that shiver cramp and go quiet
and you are alive the way one
who wakes from major surgery
is alive, asking the kind nurse
who is overworked and underpaid
What is left for me now
and she hands you a mirror
because you are desperate for a mirror,
and there you see the face
that was his face when,
done with practice,
having massaged his knees
and put away our gear,
he would trudge back
to his banal labors.
