Sixty or More Winters on Its Head

No compensation now, since

She’s more than a decade gone.

Sixty-one winters ago,

She already knew the shape

On her lap was distorted

In the bone and had broken

More than once, fragility

Of the skeleton the gift

Of the previously frail

Father. She already knew,

So any compensation

Lay in hope for a preacher,

A handicapped man of God,

Frail witness to sturdy faith.

By thirty-five years later,

Those hopes, like their frail father,

Were on life support. She said

To her grown, atheist child

On his crutches, This will be

You, too, before long, pointing

To his father in the bed.

She said it with a meanness

And a note of resentment,

Since she was angry at him

For leaving the faith, leaving

His father disrespected,

Leaving the whole family

For another kind of life.

You’re in for a punishment

And you’re deserving of it,

Was what her tone said, although

She didn’t seem to notice

The implication would be

That his father was being

Punished for his own sins, now.

Her eyes flashed across the room,

Almost a hint of triumph

In them, probably as much

Compensation as she got.