My bones are healing.  13 weeks in.

I was given the go ahead to put weight

on my right knee, ankle and heal. 

Ditto for my left shoulder and arm.

In physical therapy

Lydia had me get out of the wheelchair, take off

My boot and walk across the room

To the parallel bars. 

And I did. 

My legs and feet

And knees and ankles remembering

This motion, this movement.

The world looks different when you are sitting,

Flatter, compared to this world of windows

and being above the tops of tables, beds

so far above

the floor.

I took two thousand steps yesterday. 

I love walking, despite the swollen ankle,

Despite the pain. 

I feel a tiredness I’ve never felt before.

I wanted to get back in my wheelchair

Zoom around– I had mastered that–

but I can’t,

won’t.

When Max and I returned it,

The woman said, as we were leaving,

It is great to see someone walk out of here,

who no longer needs a chair.

I will walk, walk

with a limp, no longer needing the crutch,

I will walk slowly, I will walk through

this pain.

I will walk through the skyway and the Green Building

Up the steps, past the cafeteria

Through the hallway my first room was in,

To Knapp, the rehab center. 

On the last day Casey, my Pt, and I

worked together, right before Thanksgiving

He asked me to walk over and say Hi,

When I could. 

And I could. And I did.  He was happy

To see me. I was happy to thank him,

For giving me this goal to walk,

To walk through the places I had been.

When I couldn’t walk, when my body

Newly screwed back together, stitched

With black thread, long lines Like the lines

on a treasure map, coaxing me on,

to find what is buried in me.

jks February, 2025