Pushing Eighty by Sharon Waller Knutson
Gray sky peers through
the frost filmed window
as he reaches for his glasses
on the night stand
and tumbles from the bed.
His body is a boulder
landing with a thud
on the hardwood floor
like when as a boy
he falls from the Oak
as twilight blinks
through the forest
and slams against
the hard earth,
but just like then
he picks up his jigsaw
puzzle body and puts
all the pieces back together.
Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who has been writing and publishing poetry for 16 years. She has published her work in online journals and six poetry books including Dancing With a Scorpion (2006) Moon Journal Press, My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (2014) Flutter Press and What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say (2021) forthcoming by Kelsay Books in October. She lives in Arizona with her husband, Al.