Alice Friman: Knee High

Whether squatting,

standing, or stomping

to some mossy memory

on the radio, the knee

takes the brunt. A heart

may pump a million barrels

of blood in a life, enough

to fill three supertankers,

but the knee in its pocket

of synovial fluid proves

the work horse. It gets us

here to there—Baryshnikov

leap or the bottle-boozy

stagger out of a gutter.

Fish gotta swim, birds

gotta fly, as the song goes

and good for them, but I say

the knee is the one joint—

bruised, buckling or bum—

that scrapes by. What’s

needed? Lyrics about knees,

stable, or teetering and waiting

for the guy wires of muscle

and tendon to steady and lock

making baby good to go.

So sing, oh muse, of the sacred

joint—the miniscus, cartilage,

socket and ball. Nose follower,

bicycle pumper, sally forther,

paired, capped and hinged

to take us the only way

it knows how—straight ahead.

—

Copyright 2016 Alice Friman. First published in Southwest Review. Republished by permission of the author.