You arrived arthritic for the cure,
therapeutic qualities of water
and the therapeutic air. Twenty-five
years later you limp out of bars
hoping rumors will revive, some doctor
will discover something curative
in natural steam. You have a choice
of abandoned homes to sleep in.
Motels constructed on the come
went broke before the final board
was nailed. Operative still:
your tainted fantasy and the delux hotel.
You have ached taking your aches up the hill.
Another battery of tests. Terrible probe
of word and needle. Always the fatal word—
when we get old we crumble. They wave
from the ward and you creak back down
to streets with wide lots between homes.
When that rare tourist comes, you tell him
you’re not forlorn. There are advantages here—
easy pace of day, slow circle of sun.
If some day a cure’s announced, for instance
the hot springs work, you will walk young
again in Spokane, find startling women,
you wonder why you feel empty and frown
and why goodbyes are hard. You go out healthy
on the gray thin road and when you look back
no one is waving. They kept no record
of your suffering, wouldn’t know you
if you returned, without your cane, your grin.