I’m wearing my mother’s shirt, the one
Subhaga Crystal Bacon
I took from the nursing home after she
died. The one with her first name
misspelled on the laundry label—
Marianna—close to the name she was given
at birth, Maria Anna. Not the name she took
when she became an American: Marianne.
I’m limping behind a wheeled walker,
just like she did before she broke her leg,
falling while she cleaned up her own mess,
instead of ringing for help.
I, too, overstep. The ache in bone knows.
After the hip surgery, nearly healed,
the crack in the femur that set me back
a whole month. No weight bearing.
They might have said bed rest, but no.
I’m here each long day trying to slide
the weak leg to join the strong.
How much weight is too much?
I awaited this surgery like a rebirth,
like a new name for my body: whole
or healed. Finally, I would be able
to climb the brown hills with the dog.
Finally, long treks on the grassy steppes,
nimble legs amid boulders cracked, tatted
by lichen, signs that say: life is long.
Everyone says It’s only temporary,
a truth that does not help. With aging comes
cascading events—one correction, then another,
like my mother’s name,
like her three knee replacements,
her detached bicep, torn shoulder cuffs,
her relentless refusal to ask for help—
Cascading, like these mountains, named for their plunge
with stoic grace into the waiting gorge.
Subhaga Crystal Bacon’s new book, Transitory, is forthcoming in fall of ’23 from BOA Editions. She’s the author of two collections, Blue Hunger, 2020, Methow Press, and Elegy with a Glass of Whiskey, BOA Editions, 2004. A Queer Elder, she lives, writes, and teaches rural northcentral Washington. Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in the humana obscura, Indianapolis Review, Wood Cat Review, and Hare’s Paw. Her work can be found on www.subhagacrystalbacon.com.
