Winter Reckoning

Take it from me, do not put your mobile phone in your back packet when going out for a walk in winter conditions. Yes, this poem is a repeat but apropos for the season.

Winter Reckoning

Once, I would have shown off

my bruises, badges of honor

bestowed by harsh winters.

Now, I wish to avoid talk

                      of broken bones

from icy sidewalks and grass

slippery as glass.        Or

                              the advice

to hike the halls of shopping malls.

          Boring as a treadmill.

Like a kid, I hid

              shin-swirls of blueberry

under my jeans until a pedicurist

spied them, evidence

of a misstep into a klutzy fall.

A balm of words bubbled-up,

           soothing as the warm water

                                massaging my feet.

Sympathy in a nail salon. What took

me so long?     The indignities

                   already past their peak. 

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor