MASSEUR

1

When leather wouldn't come our way
We were dragged from the cheerless ground,
Kneecaps crimson, stiff with cold,
Our aching worse after the loss.

His bench would always comfort us:
Draped in warm towels fresh with liniment
We'd lie still, facedown in shame,
Surrendering our pain to him.
 
Those knowing fingers read muscles,
Unknotted hamstrings, loosened cramped calves,
Soothed the bruising in our pride -
Reviving us for another week.

And when he commanded us to rise
We glowed in the light of his affirming touch,
Stepped lightly to our waiting shoes,
Oblivious of our body's weight.

2

Thirty winters have come since then,
Each inhabiting my joints, swelling knuckles,
Insisting that I pay in full
For playing in those crushing games.

I see him clearly on misty afternoons,
In the skeletons of gums rising from chimneys,
Immaculate in his whites,
Waiting for my soreness like a groom.

I see those hands glistening with oil,
Like my grandmother's, who'd massage dough
In memory of the dead,
Until it rose, ready for the oven.

I hear his voice saying: on your feet,
And I walk again, uncrucified from my bones,
Shouldering my heavy being,
Yet light in the buoyancy of soul.

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