Sledged

That steely pang reflected: from chrome to hand, handle-steel-flesh-bone; jarring.

(I saw it coming for a long time now; I’m certain you’ve dreamt of it) Me stuck in the middle again, just doing as told.

That biting rain saw it all too. Fitting…

Me, staring at a glassy water-mottled bumper.

You swinging that sledge, and I the shaker of olden days, but not respected.

The digging iron in my hands numbingly exploding, cumbersome,

Slipping away in the frigid wet.

The wrong tools for the job. That truck could’ve waited. Now we both have a bum wheel.

After the hit I fell. Not limp, but writhed there for a minute, grasping awkwardly hind.

Your connect was perfect. I watched you line up, the brakes fail,

And witnessed that skid of tritely honed skill, wreck. What was your aim that time anyway?

The right side of my pelvis, posterior, south of the waistline.

“Sorry” (Yes, you certainly are)

Sorry your sorry does not translate, but mine does reciprocate.

(I think you’re only sorry you didn’t paint the ground gray. In this moment I wish you had.)

Eyeball to eyeball with silt-painted rain-spattered gray-brown gravel, looking up…again.

Now, mom and I abandoned, fixing your failures…again.

Trudging on in spite of you, just for spite’s sake…again.

What would my dad say if he were here? “No way.”

Fists would dominate a one-way conversation; you, breathless, empty,

Without me the truck’s brakes fail. Without me this family will fail.

You manage to fail on your own with or without me. Such treachery.

Wait until my brakes fail.

Sorry.