BALANCE

It wasn’t hand, eye, reflex,
bicycle or road below that failed him,
no, none of those, when he fell
to the sidewalk on his way home
from work in the big city;
It was the virus that wormed
its way into the brain where the nexus
of balance lay, we later learned.
For him the utter bewilderment:
the sudden vertigo, there on the sidewalk,
face-down, the bicycle thrown along the curb,
the wheels still spinning, the great
spheres cockeyed on their axes.  To ride a bike:
how natural, natural as breathing, auto-piloting
the handlebars on a perfect swivel.
Hanging on to the curbside sapling,
he slowly rose to his feet, shaken
to the depths of him, the self-correcting
gyro gone haywire, no longer assisting
the navigator, bringing an end to
all he knew and the start to a long roll
to hospital wards, visiting nurses,
filled pill boxes; family scrambling and
dumbly standing by, some of them walking
into three rapid-fire punches – gay, AIDS, dying.
He leaned on his bike as he walked it,
tuning out the whispered name of the plague,
turning from the thoughts that fly to fear,
of judgment, retribution, narrow footpaths
for the righteous, mother’s reproach, Sodom,
Sister Maura’s starched wimple, deadly sins
coiled like tapeworms, squared certitude,
the catechism’s crisp answers, the integrity
of suspended bridges, Lenten fasts setting
wrongs aright, men loving women for
God’s honor; all now afoul with man and
man together, the unutterable, seraphim
turning into gargoyles, all falling down on
the priest-ridden forebears, falling down,
the impact, the hydrant, the no-parking
sign, the crack in the curb shooting
grass, the jagged teeth on beer-bottle
glass, down there where the broom sweeps.
On seesaws no solos.  His brothers were not there,
and then they were, pacing about inside their skins,
trying their best not to wear the shock, stumbling
with him till they found their bearings.  Balance.