women leak: we do not talk about our leaks: not
acceptable dinner conversation: in youth
I did not need extra protection, Depends, I had strong
elastic muscle: now I’m told,
do Kegels: surgery is an option: can we get more extreme? scientific?
Pharmaceutical? when all the heart wants
is a place to come home.
tight, she holds tight: bubble burst quiver of need: to release
spend out into rush: evacuate: balloon-push full pressure:
convoluted: contorted, she holds tight: controls what cannot
wait: she slips, falls, hits the ground: time stops, she sits
still on the sidewalk: foot twisted: her bladder held tight:
no blood: I reach to help, she crawls to the wall
slow: stops, holds, bent into herself, she comes to a stand:
anchors one foot: good foot: rest? No, I need a bathroom:
we walk, my hand anchors her arm: her hand grasps the wall:
steady, direct her to a stall: a quiver this need:
halted English, my husband, around the corner
I seek the man: he sits on a wall: Will my car be okay?
Yes, come: she needs you: she fell: we go, we wait:
he wraps her swollen ankle: take her to a doctor: his eyes
stop: they drive away: do they have insurance: I worry
how will she fare. I know such urgency
.
Photo Credit: Magdalena Roeseler Flickr via Compfight cc
Julene Tripp Weaver
Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle, WA. Her three poetry books are: truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and a chapbook, Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2007). Julene worked for 21 years in AIDS services. She is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her poems can be found online at Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, and Writing in a Woman's Voice. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com and @trippweavepoet on Twitter.
