These poems are published as part of the Amplifying Disabled Voices special section, selected by editors Christopher Heuer, Marlena Chertock, and Gregory Luce.
 

Even the Trees Tell Me That My Body is Not an Apology *

As the buds of the tulip tree emerge from the depths to color a life,

the pignut hickory’s leaf scars are shaped like a heart — the divots a discontinuation of the smooth bark to give a gift back to the soil

the rings around each twig, each branchlet
knobby and lumpy and to some an interruption

but let us celebrate these as continuations
the scars and marks and bumps and goop
and juice and blood and salt and pulp and pith

proof of our beautiful continuation
our hike through the forest of deaths that make a life
the beating thumping dancing heart that
shapes our woven leaf scars and wooden branchlet rings

so that our tulip trees may never stop blooming.

*Title inspired by Sonya Renee Taylor’s poem, The Body Is Not an Apology
 

Florida

the last time you undressed me,
I was golden
naive skin
hungry blue eyes
the world was my friend, and you, my lover

did I feel smooth? no velcro or adhesive or plastic.
a manatee that hadn’t yet been mangled by a fishing boat
an oyster who still held her pearl
didn’t know she would lose her pearl
didn’t hold on hard enough to guard her pearl

wrapped/rapt
in my own arms i feel my body come apart
i slurp my very own organ soup
filled with herbs and pills and all the different goops:
mri goop,
ultrasound goop,
physical therapy goop,
gloved goop,
eye goop

what would your fingers find inside of me now?
a pessary,
an organ –
or two

have i lost my luster i would ask?
have i turned green as jade?
dull with throbbing heaviness?
do you also hear the cigna hold song or is that just in my head?

can you embrace me and put me back together without tapes or splints or drugs and
promise promise promise that

you will pull yourself out of me and
marvel at what you see: your
fingers slick with my very own golden nectar goop

Barbara Maria (she/her) grew up along the Pacific Coast and now resides beside the Potomac River. Find her conversing with the moon, talking to trees, and playing by the water. Barbara is a part of the EDS community and explores the intersections between ecology, queerness, and disability through her writing and herbalism practices.

Featured image in this post is, “Inside the Forest – painting by László Mednyánszky” By László Mednyánszky, licensed creative commons via Wikimedia Commons.

These poems are published as part of the Amplifying Disabled Voices special section, selected by editors Christopher Heuer, Marlena Chertock, and Gregory Luce.
 

The Genuine Article

What keeps me around?
You know me
even the snarls and tangles
you don’t
want to feel
but can’t comb out of me

Unlike some childhood totem
something like a grown woman
even with my unalterable aversions
towards vacuums
acrylic sweaters
networking
Non-monogamy

something like a real woman
spiked with fears
heavy as gasoline
in a Molotov cocktail
but that’s not what makes
me real to you

like an adrenaline rush
you’ve unlocked something
stumbled into
a penchant for elation
that only you knew was hiding
 

Ghrelin

reward the breath for it is fleeting
reward the lip and its hunger
the body’s diplomats
the body is an absurdity
that demands tribute
breath, hunger and thirst
mafia consigliere

Juliana “Jules” Schifferes is a poet from the Washington, DC area. She was the winner of the inaugural Luce Prize, awarded by Day Eight to an early-career poet of promise. She has published in The Mid-Atlantic Review (formerly Bourgeon), Wishbone Words, Poetry X Hunger and Washington Writers’ Publishing House. She works at a civil society organization, fighting the good fight, when she’s not writing. In her free time, you’ll find her curled up with poetry and a cat. She identifies as autistic.

Featured image in this post is, “Training bijstandseenheid 12” By Ministerie van Defensie, licensed creative commons via Wikimedia Commons.

These poems are published as part of the Amplifying Disabled Voices special section, selected by editors Christopher Heuer, Marlena Chertock, and Gregory Luce.
 

Bag of Bones Stewing in Pearls of Wisdom

Hello my name is Bag of Bones
on a good day
or Wretched Sack of Bones
in brutal weather

We all have bad days.

Welcome to the woe is me space
a bleak land with no trees
where plague bulldozes bodies
and spews hell in its wake

Every cloud has a silver lining.

With the shrieeek of tinnitus on loop
cockier than life’s two firm truths
my crumbling spine would like a word
to name this hitbyMacktruck stew

Suffering builds character.

A mind disassembled
unmoored in its home
wandering the Bewilderness
in search of nouns and lost marbles

Not all who wander are lost.

Time is funny. Wibbly wobbly.
A crash course in aging
tumbling into eighty,
decades out of season

Age is just a number.

How far can I go in the woe
is me space? Blasting past sky
grasping for limits
clobbered and spent
all out of journey
requesting permission to land

It could be worse.
 

Tidings of Dementia

A monster in the shape of an envelope
arrived.

First, a polite greeting of Hello,
I come bearing news, please
won’t you take a peek inside?

Next, a steady tick tick ticking,
an unbending chant of here, I am
here, with hints of what’s to come.

Then, a murmur of Open. Open. Open.
Turned to a racket of thumping
and pounding, a full-throated
bark of here I am, hear me
howl.

Still drawn to the bliss of ignorance,
the space before knowing, suspended
before dawn, before hitting
the turn that knocks the course from north
to south, upright
to prone, calm
to storm.

What month is it? What year?
Who is the President?
Who was the President during the Civil War?
How are a hammer and a corkscrew similar?

They open, open, open, one
by blows of brute force, the other
with more grace and piercing pain.

To open or not to open?
That is the question. 

Camille Buckner is a psychology professor by day who found her way back to poetry through a life-altering illness. A prolific, unpublished poet in her youth, she left poetry behind for an academic career in social psychology, specializing in gender, prejudice, and discrimination. After becoming seriously ill with Long Covid in March of 2020, Camille began using creative writing as a means of processing the trauma of complex chronic illness. Her first essay, entitled “One Year of COVID-19 Long-Hauling: A Beginning with a Middle and No End,” was published by CARRE4 in 2021. While writing a second essay, “Living with Long Covid in a ‘Post-Pandemic’ World,” Camille rediscovered poetry as a powerful means of documenting and releasing her trauma. In sharing her poetry, she hopes to raise awareness about the devastation of Long Covid, challenge the gaslighting that often accompanies complex chronic illness, and help people in this community feel less alone.

Featured image in this post is, “Assorted Ice bergs Thule Greenland” by Drew Avery, licensed creative commons via Wikimedia Commons.