life work

disabled as an identity, mine,

did not register while rereading my patient charts

and print-outs and blood tests,

or while draining my savings to buy mobility aids

or during my thesis research on crip time

or when Phil ran his hand along my spine that January morning

as I sat up in bed, too dizzy to stand, always, again,

or when the craniosacral therapist called me a warrior,

which made me think of cancer patients,

scared me more than empowered me,

or when I switched dentists because the office was on the second floor

and the elevator was old and regularly out of commission

even still,

when the diagnoses arrived, hand-in-hand, no cure,

acronyms to pocket gratefully,

I resisted its categorization with self-deprecating jokes.

It wasn’t until the word disabled entered my dreams, lucid,

that I began putting it in my author bio,

marveled at the thought that even at my most incorporeal,

I’m well aware of my precarity, my legs,

this full system override I can liken only

to how a spinning top lurches

through its final rotations.

Publication credit: "life work" first appeared in Issue 01 of The Goldfinch Review