The Wheelchair with My Name
Sits with blue trim on virtual pages
of an advertisement. I hum
a little song of syncopation
as I walk, left leg shorter than right,
six pedicle screws inserted into
titanium after three surgeons in green
lifted nerves from vertebrae.
I go to the Y, walk the treadmill
For a half mile. Serolac belt tightened,
Rykä tennis shoes laced. Nothing’s certain
in this conditional metal-fused
world. I know the Eskimos
have a thousand words for snow
and for pain I have only the one.