Broken
At the park, you stagger your way
through shrieks and shenanigans,
crying. Your arm, once a smooth
stroll from shoulder blade to fingertip,
now a mountain hike, its slopes
insurmountable. My heart landslides,
tumbles over the edge of your pain.
Whatever I was holding in my hand
jolts the earth. You walk towards us,
your mothers, trying not to cry, to tough
the bones back into place as though
your fortitude wore scrubs and a mask.
When children fall in films,
parents always falcon on the scene,
but not me. For a few fractured
seconds, I´m all knees and vertigo,
hanging upside down from a bar
of shock, unable to drop.
How many times have I, searching
for the rewind button, pressed
remorse instead? You, halfway
to the hospital by now. Your sister
plunged in friends´ hugs, inconsolable
as a skeleton. The sky birdless,
hunched in facepalm, my cheeks
slap-red. Your arm will heal, son,
but know this: there are moments
in a mother´s life that never
fuse back together.
*
Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, was published in February 2025 by Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was a finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja” and was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Her work appears in ONE ART, Variant Lit, The Westchester Review, Up The Staircase Quarterly, and others. She lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.
