In the late 1940’s, polio
scowled around the public pools
with its face in shadow, melodrama
of my mother’s warnings
slinking towards tragedy. Another kid
every weekend smiled bravely
through the Sunday centerfolds
from an iron lung. Mother hung
those photos in my bedroom, overlapped
them with a painting
of the Sacred Heart. Instead of a machine,
the open chest
of Jesus,
blood and all, pumped away
for me. Okay, but
steam rose
off the streets all summer
and wasn’t Galilee even hotter
than the Bronx? Why did Jesus
walk on water
when He could have splashed around in it?
Why were the kids
with polio always grinning in the newspapers?
So I snuck
into the neighborhood pool. Floated
and paddled and kicked. Held my head
under as long as I could. Just now
thinking about coming up.
–James Doyle,
The Long View Just Keeps Treading Water
Accents Publishing
James Doyle is retired, 75 years old, and lives in Ft. Collins, Colorado. His publications include The Governor’s Office, The Sixth Day; The Silk at Her Throat, Einstein Considers a Sand Dune, and Bending Under the Yellow Police Tapes. James Doyle’s poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including Atlanta Review, Cimarron Review, The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and others. His poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s PBS radio show, The Writer’s Almanac, and on Poetry Daily. Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry has featured his work, and his poetry has appeared over a dozen times on Verse Daily. His poems have been reprinted in many anthologies, including Prentice Hall’s Literature: an Introduction to Critical Reading, used in universities across the country.