Walking my paper route I did not hear the fall That August afternoon The air vibrating With the psalms of cicadas The sun casting shadows That shortened my boyhood The body of my grandfather Lying on the brick steps Like a tossed newspaper Of a house along the way His messiah-bloodied face In my hands as he cursed The near occasion Of the Ninth Street Bar Where he could drink Like a wedding guest Home a staggering block away That he could not navigate The weight of his brokenness In need of a Cyrenian As I rested his head in my lap The Ohio’s unyielding course Past the steel mills Grinding men like grain Then brought back to life At the cockcrow Of another workday Like the risen Christ