Dead Beneath his Rescue

Dispatcher voice becomes
cold blood, sweat, then pulse.
Sending him too close to home.

He pounds his father’s chest.

Inexplicably, his arms lengthen.
He is cartoon, the lop-headed drawing of himself
and the small Saturday-morning boy, jaw agape
at the doomed hijinx on the screen.

He is both compromised tether
and hard ball that rings the rusted pole,
wound ever tighter. Cut. Burn.

His force is certain, striking,…impotent.

Once he had been tremulous infant
in the arms of that crumpled man:
musk offering solace so deep
there was not even language,
just coo sinking into sinuous arms.

How dare the heavens demand this of him?

Heart chamber, now blue sanguine swell.
Broken ribs to brittle in furnace.
His own flesh, dead beneath his rescue.

(cc) Karen G. Johnston