This poem was published in APJ 14.1: WALKING, guest edited by Jake Goetz. You can buy a copy here.

TO THE BODY UNORDINARY

the doctor cracks jokes,

doesn’t have that twist to his mouth

that i have come to expect

nor the mantle of arrogance

while mispronouncing my condition

doesn’t say “maybe you’re just

anxious”—i am anxious

largely due to doctors 

who neglect the maxim Do no harm

parading bigotry as physic

saying “maybe you’re overthinking

it” or maybe it’s my imagination

& i try to imagine something else, 

a body without agony, 

a body that walks & stands up

without falling over, a body

with energy & substance, lacking 

joint laxity, spasticity, fragility, 

unaltered by hormone therapy, 

untargeted by eugenics, with an 

unabbreviated life expectancy

—a body that will never know the joy

of soaring down the hill, a body

that is still, that doesn’t spin or sway 

from side to side or soak up colour

& light, a body with quiet hands

that doesn’t contort or fall out of joint:

a slow, bipedal, confident body,

possessing limited mobility, 

no lithium-ion propulsion,

unradicalised, oblivious

& ignorant of all the secret pathways

(side entrances, goods & services 

elevators, hydraulic stair lifts,

jacaranda flowers littering

the long way round)

—none of which i explain

to the doctor, who says “normal”

in contrast to my body & then

guiltily amends to “typical”

at which i laugh thinking

how boring to be normal, how dull

& colourless a life

how unimaginable