Sheila Black
Disability 101
The decision is made that you need a new leg.
Or legs. The decision is made to make an incision.
The decision is collusion, imprecation. The decision
is not your decision. The decision is made that limping
is detrimental, better a wheelchair than a wild walker,
better a crutch than to watch all that flailing, falling.
Better a titanium bone than a shoe with a lift. O hospital—
homeland, your bleach corridors of displaced children,
the therapy sessions in the blood-warm pool in the
basement, the mantra to try and keep trying. The
decision is made based on the x-rays, the decision is
made based on the growth chart. "We can't think about
feelings, only numbers or probabilities," the man with
the large hands tells you the third time. The decision
is made blind. The decision is made in manila folders and
blue stamps; the recordings of vitals at 5:00 am. The
decision is made in projections and real-time imaging.
The decision is made based on a snapshot hung on a
refrigerator. The decision is made not by the fallen
tree or the real track in the real field.
Sheila Black is the author of House
of Bone, Love/Iraq and Wen Kroy,
which one the orphic prize in poetry. She co-edited with
Jennifer Bartlett and Michael Northen Beauty is a
Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. She has
received the Frost-Pellicer Frontera Aware and was a 2012
Witter Bynner Fellow selected by Philip Levine.
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