I Go Back to May 1973
To the night I crashed
and see myself, a long tender lily unaware
of her grace as she’s about to get
into a Mustang to leave a party
with someone she barely knows
because her boyfriend is ignoring her.
She hasn’t learned yet how oak
doesn’t bend at 120 miles
per hour. How her spine can snap,
wilt those long green stems forever.
I want to run to her on legs I got to use
my whole life, not just until fifteen.
Tell her to turn back. Say to her boyfriend
she wants to go home, to skip
up the stairs to her bedroom,
shed her clothes, jump into the shower,
then snuggle into bed with her teddy bear
with the whisper of dreams that sleep inside—
what would our life be like
if I did go home that night and the next
day was like every other day—
I leave her as she opens the door,
allow her the time to come find me.
*
Mary Keating writes at the intersection of myth, resilience, and disability. She is the author of Recalibrating Gravity, a memoir in verse published by Woodhall Press. Her work appears in Rattle, Wordgathering, and in the One Art 2024 Haiku Anthology, with new work forthcoming in The Fiddlehead. A three time Pushcart Prize nominee, she serves as the poetry editor of ScribesMicro. Paralyzed at fifteen, she went on to become an attorney, disability advocate, and graduate of Yale Law School.
