Crooked Arrow by Kathryn Temple

Crooked Arrow

As you kneel, cautious of your knee, your bum shoulder,
as you reach into the mess of plumbing under the sink,
your shirt pulls up, a few inches, a few vertebrae,
revealing your back, you say, hand me the wrench,
and I see your boyish self, the curious one, the fixer
who cannot leave a problem, or a broken pipe, unresolved,
they say that some are dandelions, who thrive no matter the soil,
I see the boy who rose from ashes, dandelion bright.

Later, in bed, we are young again together,
I think about the paradox, to know we are old,
to feel young in the dark.

*

Kathryn Temple teaches at Georgetown University and lives on the Chesapeake in a small town south of Annapolis. The author of two academic books and many academic essays, she has also published in The Inflectionist Review, Poetry Superhighway, Petigru Review, Metaworker, and Streetlight, among others. Currently, she is working on a poetry collection entitled “Parachute,” and her third academic book, Ambivalence: the Invention of a Modern Emotion. You can find some of her personal essays and some writing advice here: Bits & Pieces. Her CV is available here: Academia. When she’s not working, she tries to keep the ducks off the dock.