Wounds
I
Young as a first bicycle I wheeled down Marama Street hill. The wind was all applause.
Brakes, the enemy of forward momentum, stalled the thrill. Head over bells I went for the road to rage at my forehead.
The doctor, his face wrinkled as a darned sock, threading a needle said something about a stitch in time.
II
Barefooted I chopped the slippery from the seaweed-sea driftwood. The axe swung through the sun, grazed its target and launched into my foot.
A boiling kettle of fire pumped like a geyser.
Mum called for the ambulance, Dad for a cup of tea.
III
The sky was bandaged when you hit the road
the hatchet work done leaving me
to limp into tomorrow’s waiting room.
Lindsay Pope