The Places Where They Fell

We’ve mopped the blood and piss away.
The bandage wrappers and needle caps
are gone. A stranger wouldn’t know,
but I still see my father on the kitchen floor,
black hair stuck to the edges of the walls,
left leg shattered into bits.

I see him in the backyard, too,
by the faucet near the patio.
With a broken hip, he crawled all day,
over the rocky sidewalk, across
the cold garage floor
to lie in the driveway, waving his hat.

I see him near the clothesline,
where he landed when he missed the step,
his hands torn and bleeding.
I see him on the living room floor,
where he tumbled off the couch,
unhurt, but he couldn’t get up.

I see my mother on the hardwood floor,
where I played onesies-twosies long ago.
Legs gone limp from cancer meds,
she wept as the firemen carried her
out the door to the hospital. Only
dust remains, but I still see her there.

It’s an old house full of falls.
You can vacuum, wax and sweep,
you can lay new carpet down,
but this is where they fell
and I couldn’t pick them up.

Sue Fagalde Lick is a writer/musician/dog mom living on the Oregon coast. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Willawa, Cloudbank, New Letters, The American Journal of Poetry, and other publications. Her chapbook Gravel Road Ahead was published in October by Finishing Line Press, and her new chapbook, Widow at the Piano, is scheduled for publication by The Poetry Box in March 2020. When not writing, she leads an alternate life as a music minister.