Runts of the litter, you were always the weakest ones.
You were always the neediest. Right from the start,
in first grade, my mother had to get those heavy glass
crutches for you. How stupid you looked walking around
with them. How embarrassed you were. How helpless
you were without them. That was what the bullies went for first.
How they loved to kick the glass crutches out from under you
and laugh as you froze in place. And the eye doctors were wrong,
the ones who said you would improve, who said that someday
you would not need them anymore. They are lighter now,
it’s true, less bulky, more stylish. And even though you need
them more than ever, all in all, things could have been worse.
You have become such talented historians. See how
much more I have learned from the two of you than
I could have learned from a hundred history books,
for you have showed me so vividly, so true-to-life what life
was like a thousand years ago, as I walk the rough roads, my hand
on the shoulder of my daughter or my son, who curses me as I stumble.
Nominated for the National Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than 40 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.
