San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Thelma T. Reyna
OSCAR THE BLADE RUNNER
 
You run on scimitars, slicing
grooves on tracks, stirring dust
with pumps of arms and stumps.
 
Hero muscles, olympian grit
churn miles alongside athletes whole,
pitting your heart against their calves and feet.
 
Oh, Oscar, how we’ve loved you!
Loved your will to race the wind and stars,
to brace the weight of Afrika on blades,
 
re-calibrate what makes a man be god,
transform a newborn’s curse to glory
for a boy denuded of his bones and limbs.
 
Oh, Oscar, how we loved your fire!
But she loved you, too, and you loved her.
She hugged humanity and lifted others from the dirt.
 
The god in you absconded in a blink,
evaporated in four thunders and black smoke,
on the saintly day that lovers love the most.
 
How mighty is the fall of gods,
precarious tumble from their pristine perch,
that proves to worshippers how quickly goodness dies.