Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Recovering in the hospital,
a toddler I know raised mostly on an ipad,
crawled on my bed, put her hand on my chest,
instinctively spreading apart her thumb and forefinger
across my skin, the way you enlarge
a picture on an iphone. She wanted to see
the cancer up close, what the bad cells looked like.
You don’t look sick, she said.
I could hardly blame her,
these days there are so many ways
to mask yourself with health and wellness,
the body doesn’t get to showcase illness
on its surface for too long.
How well I hid the tiny nibbling deaths
that visited me every day,
my body’s endless cellular sloughing,
blisters, gum bleedings, burns and peelings,
diarrhea, lost nails, clumps of hair,
walking around wigged, lipsticked,
padded like a hockey player.
Last week, I found myself at the grocery store
weeping, my wig sliding off,
a concerned woman looking on as I leaked
all over the floor, me a viscous ghost,
mostly liquid, translucent
with a few bits of body barely
holding me in place, ego
standing at a distance, horrified,
not knowing what parts of me were dead or alive,
so many of my ducts leaking
I thought I would sail away.
Suddenly I knew why some monks
lose their shit on silent retreats,
so much exposure to impermanence,
so much letting go, so many psychic tectonic shifts,
the self’s heaviest ingredients falling through
the mind’s torn damp bag,
the groceries spilled across the floor.
Oh how I tried to look dainty,
readjusting my wig
as I bent over to pick the groceries up
hot shame rising like a flood up my face.
How quickly I clutched them to my breast,
stuffing them back in,
as I raced out through the door.
← Adrie Kusserow
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