Paraplegia

    by Ed Bennett

In my dreams I walk,

summer grass caressing my feet

like the whisper of a lover.

Wind tussles my hair,

the sun warms my bare-legged strut

as I absorb these simple joys.

In my dreams I walk,

my memories stark and baleful

as I wake to my confinement.

My limbs are stolid,

recalcitrant beyond my touch,

inert and bent toward atrophy.

Yet I’ll walk this night

in a dream so pure and distant

as stars above my seeking soul.

I will walk some day

when the pull of this earth cannot

confine me to this rolling chair

and there is no dream,

just the blessed ambulation

of one foot beyond the other.

© 2016  Ed Bennett

Ed Bennett is a poet and reviewer living in Las Vegas, NV.  His works have appeared in The Externalist, Touch: The Journal of Healing, The Lavender Review, Quill and Parchment, and Lilipo. He is a staff editor for Quill and Parchment Magazine, the recipient of a Pushcart Nomination and the author of A Transit of Venus.