These poems are published as part of the Amplifying Disabled Voices special section, selected by editors Christopher Heuer, Marlena Chertock, and Gregory Luce.
Lemon Body
a salesman slaps the roof of my body
and declares that it has excellent bones,
but i am a towering jenga pile
teetering and threatening to topple.
i yield where i should be unmovable,
and i creak and groan when i should run smooth.
this beater is destined for the junk yard,
to be salvaged for parts not yet rusted.
but even though my paint is not polished,
and doors that should open require a shove,
she gets me safely from point A to B.
she has velvet-soft seats, feels good in-hand,
and can take the long way, to see the sights.
i hear myself say, she sure is a beaut.
Lycanthropy
they say there are two wolves within you
but i’ve only ever had one
she the formidable alpha
and i the brittle cage
straining to keep her contained
in myth, lunar beams beckon her
peeling back black gums baring yellow fangs
a gaping maw shaping the call for her kindred
in reality, she comes unbidden
wild rolling eyes, on all fours heaving
cracking my bones like twigs in her jaws
i know she is close to the surface, rumbling
she thrusts her furred hide against my trembling tender tissue, incessant
threatening to consume me if i dare to keep her inside
unwillingly i pare the layers of my flesh with a finger
slipping underneath, yielding like soft pith inside the peel of an orange
muscle slides over bone below fevered skin, unseamed
her narrow frame sluices through the newfound passage
she discards me like a rabbit
all the life shaken still
the wolf is out
and all she does is destroy.
Dayne Blair (she/her) is a disabled lesbian writer, artist and philosopher living on Treaty 4 territory; you might remember her as “That Weird Girl From High School.” Her poetry and prose examine queerness, disability, existential dread, and identity through speculative narratives, fantastic imagery, and humour. She has somehow tricked a local writing group, the Pain Poets, into accepting her as their fourth member. When she’s not at work hacking the planet, she’s spending time with her bird-son Artie or watching horror movies with her loved ones.
Featured image in this post is, “Eurasian wolf 2” By Mas3cf, licensed creative commons via Wikimedia Commons.
