print previewback STEVE SCAFIDI
The Bull Leaper’s Birthday
Leaping over the bull in the Bronze Age
My father was so young so
Quick flipping over the horns
In the dust of his island.
Now almost eighty years old
He lies on the sofa and rests
As we speak of the lilies
And the smoke trees of his garden.
I don’t ask about the bulls,
The passage of almost four thousand years,
The scars from his work
But we talk and we laugh.
My sisters float through the room
Checking on him kissing us
My niece and my mother also
For that is how it is—
When you are in luck
Flying over what comes at you
To kill you and you flick
Your life through the air like a bird. 
The Bull Leaper’s Birthday
The Jewel