Progress

Last year, a wheelchair and sessions of hydrotherapy—
the water supporting your crumbling back
as you strode, slo-mo,
across the pool.

These days, no wheelchair. Exercise and calcium pills
have strengthened your muscles and bones,
but the pain still nags you
for co-codamol.

A wheeled walker eases the stress on your back,
so you’ve stretched your walks “just round the block”
to half a mile
and the local shops.

Now you’re taking longer walks from the holiday let
down to the beach and to the restaurants in town.
No faster than you were,
but what great strides!

Mantz York lives in Manchester, England. His poems have appeared in print magazines, anthologies and e-magazines both in the UK and internationally. His collections ‘Voyager’ and ‘Dark Matters’ are published by Dempsey & Windle.

Photo by Kaelin Hanrattie