A new doctor takes your leg in her arms and bends
at the knee, the joint that’s been howling not well.
I am knitting a poem for you, I am joining word
on word like ligaments to bone, a mother’s spell.
Chew this willow bark. Rub this arnica into the pit
of your pain. Drink this ginger and turmeric and be well.
At night the stars shudder awake. They hear you tread
the dark hall, limping room to room, unmoored, unwell.
Once, you were an infant, bones soft as candle wax,
and I was your cradle, your nest, your nurse, a milkwell.
Now you’re my teenager, my lop-sided walker, my kid
cankered by months of your body rebelling, a betrayal.
Swallow these cloves of garlic. Press the sear of cold
peas to your swollen joint. Enjoin your limb to be well.
What I want for you: boulders to conquer, glacial pools
to wade into, mountain paths ringing with bluebells.
Take this spoonful of fish oil. Spoonful of castor. Grease
to glide and unglue, unstick and swivel the joining’s L.
What I want for you: long summer hikes on Mt. Baker’s trails
with me, your mother, holy hours together in the sky’s citadel.
–
Dayna Patterson is the author of O Lady, Speak Again and If Mother Braids a Waterfall, both from Signature Books. She received the Association for Mormon Letters Poetry Award, and two of her poems appear in Best Spiritual Literature (2023).