how swiftly the body becomes an excuse // collection of reasons
for its own abandonment becomes diagnosis checkmarks blooming
across my palms will saint peter ask to see [my hands] judge me
for the sins this body has committed mother mary // scars on my wrists
my spine a cracked rosary my eyelids a thin bloody veil
how trauma repeats in my skull // like supplication this body named
[whore / messiah] i am damned for the cock & breast of me
for the split-mind of me for the hunger of my liver
for the muscles howl i read the list of reasons // i will be left
to afford survival my body’s failures curl on my tongue loose syllables
of a prayer our father // who forbids us heaven
hallowed be thy name when the fools & the bankers count their coins
may they bite for gold & break their teeth
Read More:
50 Health Issues That Count as a Pre-existing Condition [Time]
Here’s What’s in the House-Approved Health Care Bill [NPR]
torrin a. greathouse is a genderqueer, cripple-punk from Southern California. They are the Editor-in-Chief of Black Napkin Press. Their work has been published or is forthcoming in Lunch Ticket, 3Elements Review, & Assaracus. They are a 2016 Best New Poets, Bettering American Poetry, and Pushcart Prize nominee, and semifinalist for the Adroit Poetry Prize. torrin’s first chapbook, Therǝ is a Case That I Ɐm, is forthcoming from Damaged Goods Press in 2017.
