This morning, the hoary light in the guest room where my husband now sleeps frosts him with a silver shadow, turns his spare body hair white, his head hair, once dark, a willow’s worth, to fuzz on felt. I watch him rise from the edge of the bed, shuffle forward in baggy boxers, a basket of medications in both hands, held out like an offering, held out like the plates of food he hands back to me because he is too sick to eat. He looks ancient, a golem, still broad but bent shoulders narrow too narrowly, a street puppet wavering on stilts, bracing for the next blow, a marionette whose master is cancer.
Category: poetry
My Phoenix
(2008 – Noah is three years old.)
Before he was born, each moment
simmered down so simply
to: happy, sad. Now I am neither. Never
one nor the other. A haze
has settled, an eclipse cloaks
the light, and I rummage, blind,
through piles of emotions, sinkholes
of scraps, all notes on a broken heart,
searching for clues, an X on a map, a route, a way out.
The world turned grey for us. No
bright colors any more for us,
our lives whittled down with
Unmet expectations shaved off in wormlike
curls. Lost dreams drop
off behind us like so much
debris in ditches, piles of discard and disuse.
Now my back bends.
My belly scrapes the ground.
I am loaded like a beast
of burden. My weight is weighted with wants
I can no longer put to work
in the hopes of shaping a life
for myself, for him, that is measured
by capacity and not by limits.
And I am tired, tired
of sorting feelings
into orderly bins: hope love disappointment.
Yet, one day, long
after he should, he points
To an apple, red and round
on a white page. Recognition. Cognition.
And there. Oh there it is.
Like a mouse burrowing
beneath fall leaves, like a faint voice
whispering from beneath rubble, hope stirs.
And like a pale green sprout, slow
in its uncoiling, Noah unfolds.
And suddenly I believe again.
Some day he will learn
his letters, his numbers, his name.
And on those new-colt legs, he will
run with friends, run from me,
from my arms that have carried him far too long.
He will run, fly, and I will
be the first mother to cheer, to say, to plead:
Go, my son, grow up too fast.
Like they all said you would. Go.
the summer i turned eighteen
They Broke my legs
both femur Bones
Broken in half.
They removed one
and a half inches of Bone
from my strong right leg
inserted that Bone
(imagine: what could look
like sawed Bone? imagine:
sawing bone.)
between the Break
in her weaker left sister.
They used my Bones
as counting beads
as building blocks
to grapple
with impotent equations
(1.5 + -1.5 = 0)
to prove science
dominates nature.
They evened me out
3 inches.
They slidshoved (imagine!) metal
rods like skewers
down
into the spongy marrow
of my Bones.
They screwed metal
plates nestled next to Bone
and i remember
i woke screaming
when
They drew my Broken legs
bent at the waist
up over my head
(Perhaps I imagined)
a better angle for x-rays.
They said walk
and i did 2 days later
i imagined i would die
wished
They would die
imagined she
the athletic blond therapist coaxing
me onto two Broken legs
with platitudinous encouragement!
to walk
on two Broken legs
would die.
For eighteen years
They described my leg as discrepant
and i believed
that discrepancy
was me.
i watched a movie called
Misery
and she broke his legs
with a sledgehammer!
to keep him still, to keep him
home. It whispered
memory
into my ear
this (imagined?) horror.
how did They
Break the legs
begin the punishment
of the criminals
who hung
on crosses
next to jesus?
They were god.
father, son, holy ghost
my mother
bless her believing heart
turned me over to Them.
They were healers, mayo clinic, blue masks, sweet
air like candied fruits lining my mouth, like sweet
cellophane, a Disneyland sleep, reach sweet sleep
count 100 backwards, imagine peace.
They were teachers and coaches
who said no,
who refused to Break
the world open
for a little girl
for whom no
would always be the answer.
They said i couldn’t
play on the swings
skate like dorothy
tumble like nadia
It was no use to imagine.
They said i couldn’t run
on the bases. Took me off 1st when i earned
my place and replaced me
with someone who could.
i wonder who
They imagined I would become
(who I could have imagined being)
before
They Broke my Bones
the summer I turned eighteen
and I felt my spirit
slip away.
Rough Drafts Only 