But My Legs Remember That Road

But My Legs Remember That Road

After Huntington's Disease settled in
like an uninvited guest, my mother started
her walks. Back and forth, down the gravel road
from our house to the cattle gap, from the gap
to my Aunt's house, from my Aunt's, back.
It wasn't so much that she was trying to outpace
the disease; she was trying to remember the way home,
grinding each step into the gravel,
working it into her legs until they could remember
for her.

I was young when this all started.
I knew only that her father died with his fist print
still buried in the metal of a car door,
so deep and perfect you could see the outline
of his wedding ring,
though he could not recall his wife's name.

She wrote, as well. Every evening, after dinner,
she copied one line after another
on college ruled paper:
her name, her birth-date, her children's names,
her husband's; things she could remember. We kept
these pages in her old hope chest
with her wedding gown, her photos.

But my legs also learned that road, tagging
behind her like a stray calf, and the dust
that tasted like unsweetened chocolate,
the jerk of her stops and starts, the chorea
of her path, crisscrossing the gravel
like a dance floor.


C. L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Barnwood Magazine