We help you out of your chair,
chair like a nest you have settled into
with your labored breathing and flamingo
legs and we help you rise like some
frugal insect just getting its bearings,
or a baby dear stumbling, finding the meaning
of "to stand."

We help you up and you smile at us,
discolored teeth peeking out shyly,
tinted with thirty-five years of cigarette
smoke and one year of
chemotherapy.

You stand in your robe and socks, holding
our hands and we tell you, "you did it!"
even though we did it
but victories are as scarce
as red licorice among black

so we let you stand tall,
a statue of liberty, my superheroine
standing eye to eye with me.

10/18/2006

Posted on 10/18/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lisa Marie Brodsky