CPR CLASS
Today I learned to save lives
from a fireman who reminded me
of my father, also a firefighter,
a man I long expected
would murder me
and/or my mother
eventually
-- same black mustache and gruff demeanor
same patches of incorrect grammar
and lowball attempts at humor --
Did I detect some antagonism
or was I projecting?
Could the instructor tell I was queer
and just not like me?
He was probably annoyed
that I was on my phone constantly
but the video was boring,
and ugly, so I preferred
just listening.
I wanted to learn, truly,
how to save somebody
and if broken ribs
were an inevitability?
-- I imagined
the bones snapping
under my hands --
he answered
it happens
but not always
and anyways
it’s better
than dying.
He’d broken a few ribs
he told us somberly
-- and I guess my dad was so willing
to break bones because
he’d done it
already,
considered breaking
a byproduct of saving,
got used to the sharp sound
and feeling,
I don’t know --
but it seemed to me
that the CPR instructor
was trying to break me
and a colleague leaned over
and whispered to me
I bet he’s a Trump supporter
made me wonder
if my dad was too --
he was known for fear mongering
but would always stop to save
a turtle in the road
even if it made him late
for where he had to go --
And when the instructor spoke
about CPR for kids
he sombered again, said
it's scary
to have to save children
and I could tell
he’d been affected
and later he mentioned
a two-year-old
who didn’t make it.
-- In my house, when I was a kid,
there was a picture of my dad
carrying a body, a child— dead
from a house fire,
his small gray face
tipped backwards
over my father’s arm
my young father
maybe not even my father
yet, his face dark with smoke
and he carried that child
as if his own and I know
he would have saved me
from anything
but himself --
published in subTerrain