Zachary Jepsen

In Which the Boys Do Not Walk It Off

And just like that
the three-year-old learns

not only the scraping, burning
feel of grass against palms

and knees as he tumbles
down the backyard ditch

but of momentum, too—
a word that by that point he likely

wouldn’t recognize—born
from another’s intention

to see what happens if.

Of course, at the bottom,
wet and consumed

with hiccupped whimpers
for someone to make the hurt

stop, he isn’t noticing much,
neither cool and clear

sky, nor scent of fall’s
dead leaves, nor—beyond the other

boy, the one who’d shoved him—sounds
of heavy steps: Dad, approaching,

about to break his rule of never
striking another man’s child.

Zachary Jepsen is a North Carolina poet living outside of Charlotte with his wife and daughter. A Marine Corps veteran, he earned his master’s degree in poetry through Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers.