His body was as messy as the Mississippi River
Without warning, full cottonwoods, gnarled roots exposed
by years of torrents, simply fell face forward as the boy,
Rayford, sometimes did, arachnid in his twisted shape
Not that he didn’t struggle in cerebral palsy strut
against the catcalls of schoolyard bullies soon
to be senators, congressmen, merchants and preachers
One afternoon in high school, sitting by the radio,
he grabbed hold the chair his parents had placed for him,
slowly, awkwardly, pulled himself upwards shouting,
“No, dammit! No! No!”
“Are you well, Rayford?” his mother called from the kitchen
“Yes, mother,” he forced his muddied voice to answer
as loud as he could, then hobbled in string puppet parade walk,
Adam’s Apple first, head pulled back by rubber banded ligaments,
to a bluff above the river where he often stood on humid days
to silently watch the twists and turns of waters he well knew
No more would he come home from school to cry alone
He asked his father to order a stainless steel instrument
for buttoning his shirt, taught himself to weave a perfect tie,
laboriously formed a bow in his shoe laces,
took to wearing a suit and fedora to class,
ignored finger pointing, the daily ridicule
An only child, the only crippled boy in town,
he had become a brother of the river