Jill Stein
MAGIC
In the podiatrist's sad, empty office
the nurse points to me
and asks my husband as he wheels me in
"can she sit on this chair?"
as if I've moved past human speech
into the silence of my legs.
The podiatrist admits that
he could right these toes
from their haphazard splay
but what would be the point?
Twenty years of twisting
like wind-warped trees
along a mountainside, a side effect
of wiring gone astray
and lining them up now
won't make the currents flow.
The solutions:
I prefer "erector set"–
reassembling this body
piece by piece.
My son tries coaching me
to think myself to health
spackling the nail holes of my myelin sheath.
Or maybe meditation will
slip me slanted through
into that vibrant parallel life
I'm leading even now
but can't remember.
* * *
AUTUMN WALK
Not a squirrel in sight—
dog's so desperate
she's stalking robins
which are everywhere and
my husband's making corny jokes
about the robinhood
the three of us again,
me on my Segway
since my legs don't work,
(the neighbor saying
he sells tickets to people
curious about my two-wheeled chariot),
and the dog, lifting up each paw
in slow motion
till we get going fast
crossing the long tree shadows,
and she's galloping,
the two of us pulling away
as if we're about to take off into air
and it's always then that the disaster thought
pops up-
I'm on my own
shivering into the wind and
the world's stopped being kind-
it's full of roaming dogs and vicious cars
Segway's leaning backwards as the dog tugs hard
and I'm remembering how
I'm someone with faulty legs
who can't support herself
in real life
with gravity
without this engineering and this kindness
holding me upright
and I'm turning now
in a smooth arc
dog and I heading back,
dog pulling wildly
racing
toward my husband in the distance
up ahead.
Jill Stein's work has appeared in US 1 Worksheets, Poetry Northwest, Seattle Review,
McGuffin and Soujourner among others. She has two published chapbooks,
Cautionary Tales (Finishing Line Press) and Steeplechase (Main St. Rag)
and was previously an editor of US 1 Worksheets. Stein is a psychotherapist and wheelchair user
with PPMS, living in Princeton, NJ.
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