Luging with Sheila

The sled swerved in response, but he righted it again, kept 
it straight, and drove down on the black projecting mass.
                        — Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

The moon was like 
a dinner plate 
on the sky’s dark table,
 
a frisbee with no arms 
to catch it. 
The pine trees looked on 

like those doctors 
in the painting 
by Thomas Eakins.
 
(When have you not 
needed an ambulance?) 
“Belly down” I think 

the position is called— 
in this case, son 
on top, mother 

below; the former was 
laughing, the latter was 
shouting, “Get off 

of me, you fool!” 
It would have been 
sexual had there not 

been so many clothes. 
Down we went 
in that makeshift 

amusement park, 
my Innsbruck id 
a tyrant both comical
 
and desperate. 
How to get you 
to leave your husband,
 
whose fists had made 
a vow of fear? 
How to get you

to lie down 
for yourself? 
(The idea man had 

run out of ideas. 
The idea man was 
anything but ideal.) 

I’d shamed you 
onto that luge by 
calling you a coward: 

“Every time you flee, 
you go back to him.” 
We hit a bump, 

and my lips made 
contact with your ear. 
”Pervert!“ you screamed. 

“Get off of me!” 
No better than 
that goon, I held 

your slim form 
strictly in place to keep 
us from crashing. 

“We’re Mattie and Ethan,” 
I joked, “and this 
is our suicide pact.” 

“You’re such an ass!” 
you said 
as I leaned sharply 

left to follow 
the embankment. 
“Get off of me!” 

Your voice seemed 
to come 
from the ground... 

Now, here you are 
at the end 
of your life—death, too, 

is a terrible husband. 
(He charms so many.) 
Ahead lies 

that rock-strewn gulley. 
So many diapered 
rumps!

A kind of rise 
will take us over it, 
though I have my doubts. 

“Hang on, Mother!” 
I want to shout 
as I bend down 

to kiss your head. 
A hospital bed 
is hardly aerodynamic,

but it will have to do. 
The elm of heaven 
beckons. 

You’re airborne now, 
and I, who haven’t 
learned a damn

thing, am still trying
to take you 
to the other side.

Ralph James Savarese | Final
Contents | Mudlark No. 82 (2025)