Legs

His ten-year-old legs went walkabout
without him. Don’t move, they said,
as he lay like a plank, sentenced
to six months horizontal, pillowless
waiting for the needle man.

Later, he sat on his bed, waiting
for muscles to return to childish pranks,
to seaside convalescence with a family
who frowned when he licked the sauce bottle
and kicked the boys into howling submission.

And there was a bike, a bucking bronco
that rose and fell, rose and fell beneath him
until his legs mastered its waywardness,
spurred it across the grass of the local park
until it was part of his being.