SPRING
Breathe. I can’t
breathe. Music moves
in equal beats, and
my feet follow the rhythm but
air takes too long
to leave my lungs, too long
to come back in.
I relish tender exhaustion
after hours at the barre, but this
sucker punch burns
like that sickness:
fatigue.
I force out the impossibility
to make room for oxygen.
The piano begins
again I gasp along
with it.
SUMMER
Once I stop
dancing I will not feel so
impossible, I think
but—
curling under thin cotton
sheets, tight lips eyes
hand
on my belly,
roll from my back
to left hip
back to right hip
and back. Infinite
possibilities churn inside.
My mother worries
over me. She returns
from the nursing home
to find me moaning
by the toilet.
The doctor
thinks I could be pregnant.
I laugh. Impossible, it’s
more likely a
rare
incurable
disease.
FALL
I am afraid of needles, wasps,
and feeling unlovable.
One of these is almost always easier to avoid
I thought. Dad remembers me at six years old
shrieking and kicking at the sight of a nurse
holding my flu shot.
He is startled to see the same little girl
now, patient next to six empty vials
filling one by one with precious
blood. I am also in shock.
I can never forget the smell
of bitter rubbing alcohol.
Saltwater chills my veins to conceal
the rush of anesthesia. Now
I’m afraid of things
impossible to name.
WINTER
Even bad news feels like a gift
hand-wrapped, FRAGILE
when the doctor says
my disease is not
so rare,
treatable
but
in curable
nonetheless.
Do you have any questions? For him,
this is everyday.
I want to ask,
Is it okay?
wait for him
to tell me,
Dumb questions
are as impossible as you
feel today.
Lying across my mother’s bed where
the cat is not allowed
except in times of
crisis
I want to say
It’s okay
but
I choke on It.
I hate
the thick feeling
at my throat just before
a sob
rushes from my chest.
My mother pulls my head into her lap
where my whole
body used to fit.
It’s not okay.
These words fall
unpracticed
from her tongue
to my ears.
I want to ask
How
can we live
in
not okay?
I don’t know.
It feels
impossible
still