Joey
A while ago I got sick.
It was a thorough and major sick.
Lost use of the old hands and feet,
Which was, as you can imagine, weird.
My kids called the sickness The Thing.
The Thing went on for months and months.
I could tell you lots of stories about The Thing,
But there's only one story that I want to tell you:
Every morning my son got up early to help me
Put my socks on. I would sit on the back stairs
In the dark and he would wrestle my socks on
And neither of us would say any words and I
Still can't think of anything cooler than that.
I have racked my brains and considered
All the possibilities of love and I still
Return to that boy and those socks.
No matter what happens to me,
That happened to me.
______________
Brian Doyle
One Long River of Song
Little, Brown, 2019
photo: Brian Doyle & his family, 2017
