God is in the Cracks
–Robert Sward
“Just a tiny crack separates this world
from the next, and you step over it
every day,
God is in the cracks.”
Foot propped up, nurse hovering, phone ringing.
“Relax and breathe from your heels.
Now, that’s breathing.
So, tell me, have you enrolled yet?”
“Enrolled?”
“In the Illinois College of Podiatry.”
“Dad, I have a job. I teach.”
“Ha! Well, I’m a man of the lower extremities.”
“Dad, I’m fifty-three.”
“So what? I’m eighty. I knew you
before you began wearing shoes.
Too good for feet?” he asks.
“I. Me. Mind:
That’s all I get from your poetry.
Your words lack feet. Forget the mind.
Mind is all over the place. There’s no support.
You want me to be proud of you? Be a foot man.
Here, son,” he says, handing me back my shoes,
“try walking in these.
Arch supports. Now there’s a subject.
Some day you’ll write about arch supports.”
