Cognitive Losses

Words
line up:
volunteers,
obedient,
eager, orderly,
prepared. Your question
drops, a flashbang
in my mind.
Wind blows
dust

Consent

You can refuse
to read this poem
in the same way
you turn away
from a needle,
a speculum,
a pill. You know
informed consent?
Adorable,
isn’t it, how
the promise of
help, aid, care, cure,
are wrapped around
the threat of none?
Like an hors d’oeuvre,
something scrumptious
wrapped around something
else equally
delicious, right?
Something that looks
nice, anyway.
Or else. All those
bitter pills stuffed
inside olives,
dates, bananas
or wrapped in your
favorite flavor?
They come down to
“or else.” Consent
to the whole thing
or just give up,
all or nothing.
Still here, reading?
You consented.

Untitled

Walking or not walking, sitting
or not sitting. Forget running.

My heart doesn’t care. It flutters
like a butterfly with long slow

gliding strokes, then bouncing up/down,
tipped over in the wind, closing and

waiting, opening and coasting.
It flutters like a hummingbird

never at rest. There are flowers,
so many flowers, so many,

so much to do. Floating. Air borne,
weightless and whimsical. Silly

heart. What are you doing? And then
it rests. Suddenly. My son folds

his arms around me and doesn’t
want to let go.

Meditation on the Possibility of a Trauma-Informed Workplace

“Internalized ableism,” I say
to my colleague who describes their work day,

and the impossibility of ‘pause’
as a concept, much less as an action. Gauze

is what we feel like by the close of day,
half-shredded and still stretched taut. Our airways

break up words into fragments, and we wrap
syllables around each others wounds. Stopgap.

Bigger

When I was bigger, 
  I could pick up my monster and hug it. 
If it tried to bite me, I would scold it, 
  saying, "No! Stop it!
Right now, you bad thing." 
  But I didn't stay bigger long enough. 
I try to remember what I was like 
  before I wanted 
to be bigger than myself, bigger than 
  the monster, bigger. 
Do you believe you're 
  bigger? I think you do. I think you're wrong,
but that's okay. No one is as big as 
  they think they are, or 
no one is as small. 
  Or both. We can still play with our monsters,
if you want. I can't 
  see your monster either. Do you want to? 
My monster keeps changing all the time. 
  Sometimes big, sometimes small. 
No, it's not different monsters. I can tell. 
  It's the same monster 
all the time; no matter how much it changes, 
  it's still the same
monster. Deep down inside, it's the same. 
  When I change, I'm different, 
different every time. Different like water 
  when you fill a cup
with color, then empty it halfway, and 
  fill it up again 
with water. Again and again. 
  The color goes away, but 
it's always half the same. 
  That's how I change. Half same, half different.
For monsters, it's like ice cubes that are left 
  out of the freezer
and go back. The outside part melts, but 
  the inside part is still ice. 
Again and again. 
  Different outside, but still the same inside. 
You see? It's okay. 
  You will later, when you get big like me. 
Maybe big like I used to be. Before 
  I wanted to be 
bigger, I think that 
  was the biggest I ever was. So big. 

Planet

“What’s your home planet like?” they ask. Unsure
if this is a question, a pick-up-line,
or a hallucination seeking cure,
I pretend I don’t have ears. “Okay, fine,”
answers a growler, “I’ll go first. Beaches.
It’s all beaches.” The next says, “It’s mountains.”
Then they all start talking, from amoebas
to arachnids, naming one of thousands
as if there is only one. A cloud stares
at me. “What?” I ask, “I don’t know. I saw
only the forest. I don’t know if there’s
more. I don’t move much.” It drifts off, a claw
dangling. The next box whispers in 3D,
“I don’t think group therapy is for me.”

Once More

The people returned to mortality,
as if they were little gods blessed with health,
and endings as well, of their own choosing.
The plague expressed a great concern at this.
The plague began to be alarmed, and turned
its eyes over the water and over
the air. The abundance of winds, excess
of waves, the drowning and rising of breath.
That’s all the plague wanted — new beginnings
rich with little luxuries, laughter, hope;
a chance to become something, something great.
All it needed was a torn thread tugged loose
here, and a trusting soul there, and someone
too tired to care. Thank you, the plague whispered.

5 Answers

i.
Tulips with the scent
of hyacinth, so
unexpected each
time I pass, sweetly
disorienting.

ii.
The throat’s vibrato,
singing a light phrase
intentionally
melismatic, and
by chance, staccato.

iii.
After salt, tap water
tastes almost sweet, still
like nothing, flavored
with memory more
than with anything.

iv.
From the living room,
giggles (cat like tread,
is everybody
here?), the playlist faint
and set on repeat.

v.
Against the white wall
the black angel and
the angel’s shadow,
the edges blurring
and elongated.

Transformed

i.
I was once kissed by a ghost,
he says. I was in
an abandoned house, and then
(he lifts his hands as if to
cup his face, eyes focused
somewhere else, drops them) …
ah, well, never mind.

ii.
It could have been anyone.
Someone said, don’t go.
It could have been anyone
but it wasn’t, it wasn’t,
it was the most important
person in their life,
and both of them left.

iii.
Sunlight and birdsong pour through
a window as if
they have no concept of
what happens on the other
side of the glass. They do know.
The light moves from this
to another place.

Note: (i) was inadvertently inspired by a reference to Doc Janning’s poem “The Ghost’s Kiss”.

Falling

“We’re alive and here, but we died, too.” RC, Person with Long COVID, April 14, 2022

Falling from the sky through the blue,
shrinking, or is the sky growing?
But the sky can’t grow, already
it is forever. Falling from
blue into treetops, into leaves,
as if atoms of awareness,
atoms with wide amazing eyes.
Falling through leaves, through air between
leaves, through light, through the trust of air,
falling through the cracks, through the thought
of breathing (as if breathing is
a memory). Somewhere there must
be a stopping point, an end. Breath.
Breathe. Fall. Let the chest fall. Exhale.
Inhale. The air does and does not
move itself. The air is hungry.
The body is hungry for air.
It is a kind of love affair,
the way the body and the air
both lunge and leap, both rise and fall,
grasping at each other as if
this is the true purpose of life,
narrowing to a pinpoint like
vision, like a trajectory,
the point where falling stops and then
eyes open, look up through the leaves
to that blue at the beginning.