One Foot

Listen and you’ll hear a knock.
Then a grit swirls off the dry land.
Pray I give up my cane and walk.

My skin conceals how bony chalk
Gathers in my foot, anywhere I stand
A bag of soot. Listen. There’s a knock

As the rusty bone and sinews lock:
My heel that tamps the errant sand
To dust. I give up my cane and walk

In my dreams; nightmares, a loose sock
Dangles off my browning, orphaned
Leaf-foot. Every breath is the knock

Of the oxygen machine as the good doc
Strings me up a foot, leaves me bland,
Yellow toes. "Go ahead and walk,"

Doc says, hacking the cast to caulk.
Nurse swabs my orange skin—for hands
Gauze in tongs. Like clockwork, knock

The gulls at my windowsill. They flock
To stench, whet beaks on brick, demand
Flesh. Listen. Do you hear them knock?
Do I pray harder? Wake up. Walk.

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