Canes

Three short portraits. A poem from my upcoming chapbook 'Knuckles, Ribs, Phalanges'.

i.

Twelve-year old girl
shakes
into the room,
lurching as if
her body was unfamiliar -
perhaps freshly re-animated,
resurrected flesh
still unsteady on
glorious feet.

Scar above the heart shines
like a Mercury Dime.

(Glorious boy holds the cane -
obligatory transformation;
old, palsied, ornery.

I shake my head.
He ceases in the face
of young, palsied, grace. )


ii.
I know a boy who can feel demons
twisting in his legs.

He walks with the cane
tucked behind him.
When he stands,
bullstrong
and confident,
it disappears.

He has this disease where
the nerves get eaten away in a fire
that never burns
to cauterize.

The step is the twist of the knife,
the bandaid,
shock treatments.

iii.

Poet you know someone worse off,
but that's not what I'm talking about.

Rebeckah squeals and curls
like a sea-thing.

Her body is a dried frog in boots
like rollerskates -
her chest already confined
to a plastic casket.

Reviews

[Drifter]

This is a curious piece which puzzles me to some degree and fascinates me as well. I love canes for some reason so that was the reason I clicked on this piece, but after reading I remembered that sometimes they represent something sad. Bravo.