disability

I wear a yellow dress and pretend I am the sun. But I am

a bruise, subcutaneously blooming into an oily smudge. I can

see the changes - mottled blue ebbing ochre light as dawn.

I do this with my fear, watch it thinning, getting watered down.

I brim with salt and ice. Panic is a choice the spine makes,

skin rippling, breath short. I think of earthquakes, first waves,

limbs pinned under pancaked apartments and water fouled.

When I am this calamitous my mouth fills with soured water.

Panic makes me skillful. I know how to weep on the train so

no one sees the weeping, or the stilted breathing detained

by a hardened jaw. How to become as loose as worms under

the soil, and how to be still by naming each thing’s color.

They will teach that to you if you get bad enough to be seen.

What can you smell? What can you taste? What is the weight

of your heart in your chest? How long since you have been

holding in an exhalation? I am firm where I have had to brace.