CVA

In the paperwork
they called it
a “CVA”
A “cerebral vascular accident”

On the street 
they call it a “stroke”
Like a sky-sent bolt or
a smoothing hand on skin

I don’t want
to call it at all
for fear of raising it
to fiercer life

I’m shaking slowly as I stand up
less than a week later
They say I got off lucky
Call it “tiny” and “minor”

I don’t have the luxury
to minimize
or slide it aside 
as I try to stand steady

How much of this tremor
is fear and how much
impairment of a more
profound nature

Beats me right now
Beats on me right now
Is this a new normal
or will there be another to follow

and another and another
Blow upon blow
Stroke upon stroke upon stroke
Never to mean a gentle hand again

I didn’t mind getting older
I do mind getting old
Everything catching up to me
Now and now and now

Feels like all I have is now
Then is just a fiction I’ve told myself
A eruption in the brain
White dot on a scan

Like a snow cap
on a polar field
A tiny stroke of winter
on my earth

CVA — an accident
that happened
An equinox for a new season
I should have seen coming