On My Father Falling | Taylor Hagood
You’re a strong
seventy-six, agile still:
I cannot grasp you old
because you’re not.
But when you stumble
over your grandson
and stay down holding
your side in pain
I think we shouldn’t be
playing football this way.
I worry about damage,
hoping nothing’s broken.
I remember there can be
only so many years left—
remember being little
and you immense
as you are to these boys
now, and I tackle this
moment with every
hope in my body.
Taylor Hagood lives in south Florida and is the author of the chapbooks, Lepidoctora and Tapas Rueful, as well as poems and reviews in such magazines as A-Minor Magazine, Cold Mountain Review, Dodo Eraser, Louisiana Literature, New Croton Review, Night Picnic, The River, The Poetry Lighthouse, and The Rumpus.