In this issue
Edited by Deborah Fries
For
more information about
writing workshops offered by
the Cheltenham Township Adult School, contact:
Cheltenham Township Adult
School
1414 Panther Road
Wyncote, PA 19095
Phone: 215-887-1720
Ruth Deming
two poems
The
Boy on the Hill
In the hovering
twilight
they called his
name
I was there,
he inched his
wheelchair
across the wooden
stage
I built,
a boy in a suit.
Tucked the diploma
in his claw-trap
hand
and it was done
all those years.
I was there
when they strapped
him for good
to his wheelchair
home
schoolchildren
gathering round
and I in my light
summer shirt
my name zigzagged
across the pocket
shooed them away
and wheeled him up
the ramp I built
the drag of weight
the unaccustomed
pull of thigh
and feigning
gaiety, I crowed
How’s the ride
pardner?
as if he were my
own son Koren
on the backyard
swings.
His babycheeks
grinned.
When I wasn’t
mopping
or fixing or
shining
you could find me
in the basement
wasn’t many knew
as much about this
place
as I or about
folks.
When his body grew
heavy as a man’s
legs like dead fish
I watched the
brand-new van pull up
a somber burgundy
with stripes
that brought the
school kids out
to witness his
solemn electric ascent
eyes growing old
body soft as a plum
He had
as far as I could
tell
one friend
besides his mom and
dad
one boy who would
cry for him
when the time would
come
as it did
a week after I made
the stage
for his last
motorized ride
his last view on
the hillside crowd
gathering up one
last time
the hurrahs like
fragrant lilies
tossed.
Ruth Z. Deming is
a psychotherapist and executive director of New Directions Support Group for
people with depression, bipolar disorder and their loved ones. She was named
2007 Runner-Up Montgomery County Poet Laureate.