Late Night Theatrics

Walter Bargen

November 3, 2022

After five days in the hospital recovering from a tick bite

and nearly succumbing to ehrlichiosis, I nearly fall off

the edge of the world again my first night home. I feed

raccoons to keep them out of trouble, the cheap

dog food feast scattered in the pasture.

I trip maybe because I’m wearing ill-fitting inappropriate footwear

in a late summer drought. Knee-high rubber boots sprayed

with insecticide, hoping that will protect me from tick bites.

Or maybe my balance is a little off having laid in a hospital bed

for five days. Mindless, watching mindless TV.

Or maybe I’ve lost something after so many decades,

but at 74 my body remembers a lesson from fifty-years-ago

on gym mats. I do not break my fall, no hands out waiting,

risking wrists and fingers. I abruptly lean forward   

with the momentum landing on my right shoulder and roll.

I am left standing, nothing broken, no worse for slamming

into drought-hard earth, surprised that muscle memory

saved me from another visit to the hospital.

I did scare the raccoons who were closely watching a crazy

human perform tricks for them but that didn’t stop their eating.

Walter Bargen has published 25 books of poetry including My Other Mother’s Red Mercedes (Lamar University Press, 2018), Until Next Time (Singing Bone Press, 2019), Pole Dancing in the Night Club of God (Red Mountain Press, 2020), and You Wounded Miracle, (Liliom Verlag, 2021). He was appointed the first poet laureate of Missouri (2008-2009).