Breath & Shadow
A Journal of Disability Culture and Literature
Autumn 2009
Volume 6, Number 4
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Breath & ShadowA Journal of Disability Culture and Literature
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Lie Down Spasticus By P.A. Levy There's a tensile edge to us; alloy lightweight extra strong accessories to our limbs that would otherwise collapse with intermittent jestful ease, to leave us looking drunk and disorderly as we pitch and flounder in search of a foothold claw toes fight for balance, grapple against non-committed joints that thoughtlessly lock at one-eighty; can't sit down, or ninety; can't stand. We smile, though the effort leaves us exhausted, slow motion mechanical movements become the choreographed burr and rust of just being; metal fatigue let's go to bed, undressed to titanium in robotica we perform Meccanno porn and not even hydraulic suspension or heavy duty lubrication can prevent those squeaks, singing out louder than bed springs, when we rasp and grind each other to filings. There's a metal edge to us, we can't run but we're fucking. P.A. Levy, having fled his native East End in a wheelchair (polio), now hides in the heart of Suffolk countryside learning the lost arts of hedge mumbling and clod watching. He has been published in many magazines, and is an original member of the Clueless Collective to be found at: www.cluelesscollective.co.uk. |