How We Rebuild by Christopher Barry

How We Rebuild

After his hip surgery
I asked my friend about meditation
because we have the same history
when it comes to pharmaceuticals
and I wondered how honest
he was with the doctor about his past
and how was he managing
with his wife keeping track of the pills
because as we inhabit these bodies
not designed to last as long as they do
how does sitting and noticing our breathing
help when bone rubs on bone where cartilage
used to be and tendon and ligament
fail to stretch around all that atrophy.

And my friend, who rebuilt one day at a time his life
only to wake one day with a titanium hip
that will outlast his body
and a prescription that reads like a note
from an old love that his wife
holds in her purse, understands
I am not asking a theoretical question
of suffering. Some days I sit
and follow my breath while my thoughts
snake through the wreckage of my past.
Some days no amount of detachment
and gently coming back to my breathing
is enough. I can manage the slow move
towards the surgeon’s knife
but what is strong enough to handle
the recovery that follows?

*

Christopher Barry is a teacher living in New Hampshire. His most recent work has appeared or will appear in “Feral,” “Scavengers,” “Poet’s Row,” and “Sport Literate,” and “Sardine Can Collective,” among other publications. Follow him on Instagram @mrbarrywrites