Marie Kane
Even her dreams are boring,
and any stupid hope or love or
kindness becomes useless rubble
and roars fool! into her ear,
torments like sweat flies
down by the shallow pond.
Her carelessness pleases
when she drops a prismed
glass and scoops up its splinters,
or when she invites bad luck
and breaks an elaborate hand
mirror and observes its cracks
fan outward into multiple images
of herself. Her mother questions
the need for long sleeves in June,
and everyone's cheer up,
snap out of it, you can
get over this sends her
to her room, the drawer,
the needles, tweezers,
and shards - although
fingernails, alone, will do.
She had burrowed into self-
preservation as a child,
allowed the tyranny of control
to convert her hands and bring comfort
to the eerie whisk of morning
and failure of the day.
Each day's bluster brings truth:
a diamond cuts glass,
glass cuts flesh -
there is
no difference.
* * *
THIS IS THE LIFE
So what if the gods, fates, genetic
mysteries haven't been kind? We all
have our crosses but I don't believe
in the ecumenical notion that all crosses
are equal - no cosmic deal with God
would allow me to place someone else
here. Hell, I don't want to be here.
Lying on the bedroom floor after falling,
fifteen minutes pass while I straighten
my spastic legs, roll over on my stomach,
hunch my knees under my chest, become
a crawling caterpillar, and use my husband's
dresser to pull myself upright, praying the thing
doesn't topple. I reminded myself that acceptance
is what I must practice - agree, concur, assent,
swallow whole. And what if, instead, I practice
refusal, opposition, disagreement, outright
rebellion?
Now here's the important question -
why didn't I revere running when I could?
Adore the pain in calves and shins,
be smitten with knees that creaked?
Why didn't I worship the dirty kitchen floor
so I could clean it on hands and workable knees?
Learn how to rock climb or salsa dance?
My disease raises its head and solemnly asks
the same questions and I want to smack it down.
It has betrayed all things manageable - like
using an escalator, or turning over in sleep,
or standing to make spaghetti sauce.
Today, the physical therapist smiles and tells
me that I need bigger, wider shoes and later
the neurologist mentions, almost an afterthought,
that a wheelchair or scooter cannot be far off.
So, inside the 81/2 extra-wide grandmother-
black shoe, I wear a leg brace with its precise
plastic molded to my calf and foot,
welded to those lucky appendages with hospital-
white Velcro - but the foot drop is not fixed
and my toes still throb at day's end.
But in a wheelchair, I could trail my leg brace
behind me as a sea anchor, sail down mall halls,
and wave at those too slow to keep up.
"Whee," I'll yelp, halting the contraption
to gape at skinny-leg jeans, red high heels,
bikinis, knowing that before this new life I never
wore them, and I wonder why not.
Why ever not.
Marie Kane is the 2006 Bucks County (PA) Poet Laureate; she was diagnosed with MS in 1991. She has received a recognition award for her poetry from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, and an award for her teaching of young writers from The National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Her publishing credits include The River, Stirring, The Bucks County Writer, Hotmetalpress, U. S. 1 Worksheets, Wordgathering, the 2008 and 2009 Inglis House chapbooks, the Schuylkill Valley Journal, the Delaware Valley Poets Anthology, and others. She is a second place winner in the 2008 Poetry Society of New Hampshire's International Contest, an Honorable Mention winner in the Inglis House Contest in Philadelphia, and a finalist in the 2009 Robert Fraser contest. She lives in Yardley, PA with her husband, Stephen Millner, an artist. |