Now That She’s Ill

For Jackie Barzilai and in honor of others living with Parkinson’s disease

She sheds her layers now that she’s ill—
almost as if, in the groaning, the aching,
she gives birth to herself.

Not the smiling self who has her life in control,
but the trembling one who dares to let go;
who lies down naked on an empty page
and breathes and breathes till she’s fully there.

The fifty-year-old who can no longer hide
behind wife or mother or healthy body.
Who must struggle each day
just to slide her feet forward
inch by inch across the grass.

Who, with cane and shuffle, arms that don’t swing,
grows freer and freer as her body stiffens;
finally walks out on lies and pretense.

The brave new woman who calls us close,
invites us to witness the failings, the betrayals
that cannot be soothed in bed or bath.
Whose comfort now is in the telling, the listening
as our chairs circle hers in the shade.

She, the blond in the pink bathing suit,
who still takes her limbs to swim laps in the pool.

Lori Levy’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod, Poet Lore, Paterson Literary Review,and numerous other literary journals and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Israel. Her work has also been published in medical humanities journals, including a hybrid (poetry/prose) piece she co-authored with her father, a physician. She and her family live in Los Angeles, but “home” has also been Vermont and Israel.