A Boy with Cerebral Palsy

It means more when it doesn’t come
easy, when there’s a glimmer of
somebody home, groping toward a
common humanity through tangled
hallways hung with scars.  In universal
language you toss out party-favor pieces
of yourself before again submerging
into silicon.

And we must learn the braille of the
tensing and letting go of your twisted
frame that we try so hard to unravel and
reknit to the common pattern, to capture,
liberate, make-fit-your-chair, our lives,
the system, the world.

We cherish our ability to walk away, drive
home, kiss, talk, eat, relax safe from the
storms that ravage you; the stories that can’t
be told about the large, small forms of love
that sift the sands of your neurons misfiring.
Yet you know when love’s there, feel its
absence more keenly for all your austerity.

Facades don’t interest you, hold no value
in your spartan world. Touch builds shelter,
demands less of your topsy-turvy reserves.
What is the world seen through your eyes? I
imagine a Monet landscape, somewhat blurry,
but catching light better for all of that.

Carol Casey lives in Blyth, Ontario, Canada with her husband, hundreds of books and a large garden. Retired from nursing, she writes lots of poetry and a bit of copy to pay the bills. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in The Prairie Journal, The Plum Tree Tavern, Sublunary, Grand Little Things, Bluepepper, The Anti-Languorous Project, Cacti Fur, Oyedrum, The Trouvaille Review, and Stanza.  She has contributed to a number of anthologies, most recently Much Madness, Divinest Sense, Tending the Fire and i am what becomes of broken branch.