CHELLE MIKO

What Goes Before The Fall

Nothing shocked the nurses anymore, 
but the old woman ticked them off. 

She missed death's rattle: pitched headlong
from her nest in the wheelchair, to the linoleum,

and neglected to swivel her head 
in its hissing direction. The nurses called it bad luck 

when the doctor said the slightest pivot 
would have done it. She was clever.

She lay like a sparrow, neck so twisted 
they almost missed the eyes: feral 

with conviction. The nurses whispered, Why on earth, 
at ninety-one, would anyone play dead?

When they caught her marking the calendar 
with a black X for each day that filled the notches 

of her broken vertebrae, they scolded, Foolish old woman! 
She ignored them, became a white-knuckled grip 

on wheelchair steel, a grimace of screws 
drilled into skull. She was busy, rigidly buying time 

to commit more amends. Finally restored, she listened 
for sibilance: her skeleton cocked and ready,

and their whispered prediction, They all fall again 
pitched and fell across her face, where it curled 

as if spineless--into a penitent grin.

copyright CHELLE MIKO