Sinew

 

Today I fell a half ghost on a tennis court

After more than a decade I chased a ball

could not catch it as I crashed into the concrete

As for a second I was nothing but you 

Then came pain and I gazed up into the worried

faces of my friend and his mother nothing

broken for all the bruised muscle and tendon

So I laughed and came to my feet my sinew

holding me together for a while longer

Strange how survival makes more a ghost

of me strange how the pain of my injured arm

makes me feel less real makes the sensory

world more like a dream in which you can appear

the living world I inhabit dissolves making 

my very home our very home like a vision of us

In which I always think you are there upstairs

reading about the death of Dolly Parton

As I listen to the harmonies of Dead Can Dance

Jack

8/28/26