Photo by JR Korpa
The Way
Don Narkevic
Walking my paper route
I did not hear the fall
That August afternoon
The air vibrating
With the psalms of cicadas
The sun casting shadows
That shortened my boyhood
The body of my grandfather
Lying on the brick steps
Like a tossed newspaper
Of a house along the way
His messiah-bloodied face
In my hands as he cursed
The near occasion
Of the Ninth Street Bar
Where he could drink
Like a wedding guest
Home a staggering block away
That he could not navigate
The weight of his brokenness
In need of a Cyrenian
As I rested his head in my lap
The Ohio’s unyielding course
Past the steel mills
Grinding men like grain
Then brought back to life
At the cockcrow
Of another workday
Like the risen Christ
Don Narkevic
Walking my paper route
I did not hear the fall
That August afternoon
The air vibrating
With the psalms of cicadas
The sun casting shadows
That shortened my boyhood
The body of my grandfather
Lying on the brick steps
Like a tossed newspaper
Of a house along the way
His messiah-bloodied face
In my hands as he cursed
The near occasion
Of the Ninth Street Bar
Where he could drink
Like a wedding guest
Home a staggering block away
That he could not navigate
The weight of his brokenness
In need of a Cyrenian
As I rested his head in my lap
The Ohio’s unyielding course
Past the steel mills
Grinding men like grain
Then brought back to life
At the cockcrow
Of another workday
Like the risen Christ