The Child Who Walks Backwards

My next-door neighbor tells me
her child runs into things.
Cupboard corners and doorknobs
have pounded their shapes
into his face. She says
he is bothered by dreams,
rises in sleep from his bed
to steal through the halls
and plummet like a wounded bird
down the flight of stairs.

This child who climbed my maple
with the sureness of a cat,
trips in his room, cracks
his skull on the bedpost,
smacks his cheeks on the floor.
When I ask about the burns
on the back of his knee,
his mother tells me
he walks backwards
into fireplace grates
or sits and stares at flames
while sparks burn stars in his skin.

Other children write their names
on the casts that hold
his small bones.
His mother tells me
he runs into things
walks backwards
breaks his leg
while she lies
sleeping.

- Lorna Crozier

From The Garden Going on Without Us by Lorna Crozier. Used by permission of the Canadian Publishers, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto.

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