When We Learn It Is Primary Lateral Sclerosis
wracking my father’s body, his legs stiffening. He lurches,
he stumbles, he howls the dog, he wears my mother’s arms
for clothes. My father’s body, his caverns, his sinkholes.
His pituitaries and the pits in his teeth. My father, his tongue
a crevasse, his tongue heavy and white-foamed, his tongue
larger each year, making of his words a meager meal. My father,
his sky worn-through, his stars are space seen through a worm-hole
of doubt, his God a vengeful God, his boat pitched to the side
and nearly capsized. Father, have you prayed? I watch the dawn
for signs of your face in the slate. Does that count?
My father’s skin, gray and black with fur, his mottled coat,
he wears his skin ten sizes too large, he wears his legs
like prostheses, he wears his burden like a coat draped
over a sleeping child. My father’s flesh has all but disappeared—
think Auschwitz, think Dachau, the bones stacked like cairns
to warn the others. The bones, hollow as winter light.
he stumbles, he howls the dog, he wears my mother’s arms
for clothes. My father’s body, his caverns, his sinkholes.
His pituitaries and the pits in his teeth. My father, his tongue
a crevasse, his tongue heavy and white-foamed, his tongue
larger each year, making of his words a meager meal. My father,
his sky worn-through, his stars are space seen through a worm-hole
of doubt, his God a vengeful God, his boat pitched to the side
and nearly capsized. Father, have you prayed? I watch the dawn
for signs of your face in the slate. Does that count?
My father’s skin, gray and black with fur, his mottled coat,
he wears his skin ten sizes too large, he wears his legs
like prostheses, he wears his burden like a coat draped
over a sleeping child. My father’s flesh has all but disappeared—
think Auschwitz, think Dachau, the bones stacked like cairns
to warn the others. The bones, hollow as winter light.
Meghan Sterling has been nominated for three Pushcart prizes this year and has been published or has work forthcoming in Rattle, The Pinch Journal, Rust & Moth, The West Review, Colorado Review, Pacifica Literary Review, SWIMM, Sky Island Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, River Heron Review, and many others, and was the winner of Sweet Literary’s 2021 Annual Poetry Contest, Winner of Equinox’s 2021 Annual Poetry Contest, and a Finalist in River Heron Review’s 2021 Annual Poetry Contest and Gigantic Sequins’ 2021 Annual Poetry Contest. She is Associate Poetry Editor of The Maine Review, a Hewnoaks Artist Colony resident in 2019 and 2021, and her debut collection, These Few Seeds, came out in 2021 from Terrapin Books. She and her family live in Portland, Maine.
Art: Molly Dunham