Jennifer Bartlett

from AUTOBIOGRAPHY

to walk means to fall
to thrust forward

               to fall and catch

the seemingly random
is its own system of gestures

based on a series of neat errors
               falling and catching

to thrust forward

sometimes the body misses
then collapses

sometimes
it shatters

with this particular knowledge

a movement spastic
                       and unwieldy

is its own lyric and
the able-bodied are

tone-deaf to this singing

* * *

so that, the mother might
say your child must be angry

because you are disabled

so I told her, your child
must be angry

because you are a bitch

and the children ask
why do you talk like that?

and I ask them
why do you talk like that?

and children grow up
knowing this is ordinary

* * *

And when there is silence
all naked

this voice seemingly
       corrupted

or absent, so clarity is
               and isn't

and this voice is full of longing
                                  to connect

when I speak, it's as though
speaking underwater

the poems are a mere reflection
                      of the murky underside

Jennifer Bartlett was a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. Her collections include Derivative of the Moving Image (UNM Press 2007), Anti-Autobiography: A Chapbook Designed by Andrea Baker (Saint Elizabeth Street/Youth-in-Asia Press 2010) and (a) lullaby without any music (Chax 2011). Bartlett has had cerebral palsy since birth.