August #2

Firm Body Upright

for Amanda Watson and Dani Cooper 

She pounds her gravity-bound knees,

with hands still free.

Her wheelchair, black and silver,

gleams solid in the stage light.

Rising behind her, dark dancer,

jerking the movements she cannot express.

Dancer sinews hip lift to shoulder roll,

as the music clanks on.

"My body is a cage".

The seated one is veiled in black,

legs seen and still,

face hidden.

The dancer does all the woman cannot:

not enough for either

to have only six minutes

of shining to others.

Her body is upright in her chair,

as the dancer leaves the stage.

She is firm, still whole and uninvaded
by surgeon or the harder-core drugs.

Her resolve is to keep living
through the pain.

— Helen Patrice