Scott LaMascus was privileged to serve on his father’s caregiving team during his battle against ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). He is the author of The Edited Tongue: A Family’s Year with ALS. He is a writer and public humanities advocate in Oklahoma City, USA. He is director of the McBride Center for Public Humanities at Oklahoma Christian University. We are proud to feature a selection of Scott’s poetry in support of ALS awareness month

Poetry by Scott LaMascus, writer, advocate and rare caregiver

Lou Gehrig’s Prayers

—Day 2

My father’s poems lie

under his tongue today,

in bulbar zones where they lived

all along.  Now they grow crisp,

taut, line by line as he types on a screen

or writes on a marker board,

lovely script becoming a scribble.

His quick, aged mind glimmers with light

like the boy’s, born in the last years

of Lou Gehrig’s all-star days.

He loved sandlot ball with his brother

or showing us how to field and hit,

all boy all his years, serious at play.

What cannot loosen his tongue-tied heart

glistens from that sanctum where the soul

makes his last poems, half and full

stops of prayer, some lines we can read, while others lie enjambed in his eyes

The Edited Tongue: A Family’s Year with ALS, Scott LaMascus

Los Angeles: Bottlecap Press, 2025. ISBN 9781962390842 

Available to buy: https://bottlecap.press/products/edited

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