Falling but Frozen
       

By accident, mid-aisle, my heel
pressed against the paw of the service dog,
a bony softness as I

pivoted from one student desk to the next.

The black Labrador yelped
and something broke in me. No,
was broken already and snapped again.
No, was made whole

by memory: from modeling clay
I made a hollow ball,
pushed a toothpick inside, then
thumbed smooth the pinhole: hidden.

Here, I told my brother. Squeeze this.

——

Two students gasped.
One barred her fallen
open mouth with fingers.

The dog turned
away from me and curled beneath a desk

as if accustomed to hurt, the way his lowered tail
slowly swept the floor.

Swept, swept.

——

Blood-stars
dotted the linoleum from living room to kitchen.

I made that constellation.

——

What Nietzsche said of human ache:
To live is to suffer, to survive is
to find some meaning in the suffering.

I forget and remember, it comes and lingers,
sliver of wood into
my brother's shivering hand, his breaths
heavy, through the nose,
erratic, how it

lingers. And how my father
tended to the wound

at the sink, the faucet hissing
out water. And the way
my mother looked at me, her

How could you?

——

Beside my blind student I knelt, disclosed
what had occurred, that animal sound
he heard and turned to face,

his damaged eyes lifted
as if to see past

all seven floors honeycombed above us—and further

away, what is
beyond seeing, that first shattering
each visible thing carries

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Copyright © 2017 David Hernandez All rights reserved
from Poetry Northwest
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission