My stunted and stiffened left hand and
my stronger but still-numbed right;
my feet walking clumsy until I stop
to adjust for two, three seconds and then
they fall away again, and I sigh
a touch angrily, a touch in panic;
this is how I get up in the morning,
this is how I spend my day.

I keep my eyes shut tight
for long minutes until it’s time
to take medicine — so much medicine,
so many drugs — and after those pills
are washed down I can’t talk for a bit,
can’t describe a thing or an event or
a moment, and this is how
I get up and move through the hours,
this is how I spend my day.

You folks reading this are bored, I’m sure.
That is no poem, you say. That is just a recital
of mundane details; that is just a retiree’s
and disabled’s details of a typical day.
You turn off to your own excitement,
to your ownership of exciting lives full of mystery
and derring-do, turn away from me with
dismissal, with a touch of contempt,
perhaps a little fear —

but you don’t know
how at night I fasten the breathing tube,
smear my ruined eyes with the magic cream;
how I wake up slowly in first light
to do it all again after moments of wondering
how different it won’t be, how different
memory is from day to day until
it settles upon itself; how amazing the stars
looked in dreams that seemed real enough —
this is how I begin and end my hours;
this is how I spend and spent my day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T