SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT
………. You were taught it’s cruel to keep a sick pet
…. suffering but people, …. O people should
…. pull themselves up, …. always up, …. by their bootstraps.
Who can afford boots? Who has feet? What straps
………. hold up the steeples, skyscrapers, supermarkets,
schools? “It’s not far, just a few steps up,
…. not hard, not heavy, not that bad,
doesn’t hurt that much, not too late, no reason
…. to cry, why are you crying, we’ll give you
something to cry about.”…. A bout of POTS,
…. can’t speak. You need to learn to sign to speak
to the only people listening, worth listening to
………. the sound a body makes at the bottom
……. of a staircase, begging for change.
Author’s Bio
The disabled poem-making entity known as Roxanna Bennett gratefully resides on aboriginal land. As a settler, they thank the many generations of Indigenous people who have taken care of this land from beginningless time. They are the author of the award-winning poetry collection Unmeaningable, (Gordon Hill Press, 2019), unseen garden (chapbook, knife | fork | book, 2018), and The Uncertainty Principle (Tightrope Books, 2014).