Skating on Page Park Pond

by Christine Adams Beckett

We are shuffling together
Across a hospital corridor,
Your aged body weak with malady,
Mine assuming a new role:
That of doting child.

One arm around your waist,
A hand under your twitching arm
We maneuver a wheeled walker
And trailing oxygen tube with
Slow and deliberate mobility.
Your skin still emits warmth
Regardless of all that has
Atrophied underneath.

You held me this way once,
Thirty-five years ago, as we
Glided across ice,
Blades on our feet,
My ankles buckling from taxing
Rarely-used, unnamed muscles.

Embarrassed over my lack
Of skill, trumped by my
Pride in yours, I savored the
Attention, paid with parity
For each acre of your
Complicated life.

Our piece-meal skating costumes
Blue-collared sheaths, were
More like crimson cloaks
And cadet grey capes in
The vapors of our exhaled
Breath, staccato waves of
Effort and laughter.

Currier and Ives printed
The same over your utilitarian,
Cotton, hospital-issued gown,
Shrouding sorrow, grief, and
Illuminating an evanescent
Physical warmth of our
Eternal familial connection.

Central Park, Winter The Skating Pond Courtesy of the Currier & Ives Foundation

Central Park, Winter
The Skating Pond
Courtesy of the Currier & Ives Foundation