Fix

right now.
Fear overwhelms me. And just as my sweaty hands slip from the bar, the PTs rush into the room and grab my arms, righting me.
Nineteen degrees? Who the hell cares.
I’m shouting. Or screeching. My voice needing to mimic the pain.
The PTs try to calm me down as they shove my arms back into my gown. I won’t be calmed. That wasn’t me. How could anyone live looking like this?
The old lady howls profanity while the PTs haul me past her toward my bed. I’m sobbing and hyperventilating at the same time. Every breath yanking mercilessly at my staples.
Martin, the nice nurse, is behind me. He has a needle in his hand. My needle.
When they roll me onto my bed, it feels like someone is ripping my spine right out through my neck. Martin sticks me even as I scream into his face.
I keep on screaming until the morphine turns my screams into hoarse moans, and then finally into nothing at all.
“Martin,” I gasp. “I didn’t pee.”
“Yes, you did, sweet baby.” He laughs. “I’m gonna go clean it up off the bathroom floor right now.”
“Martin,” I say, clutching him. My throat burns. Somehow, he knows, and he shovels in a spoonful of ice chips.
Holy Mother of God, that feels good.

God
The first time I
officially heard His name
was in school.
The Pledge of Allegiance.
Although I’d certainly
seen churches—for me
they were curious buildings with doors
I’d never walked through.
In this pledge,
which I was asked
to repeat each morning, we were
under Him.
I didn’t get it, so
I asked my mother.
“God doesn’t like women,”
she said.
In my mother’s defense,
I probably asked while
she was in the middle of grading undergraduate papers
or
composing feminist verse
and I’m sure she didn’t consider
for a second
I’d take her statement
and think about it
for as long as I did.
God didn’t like me much.
The weird thing was,
I felt Him
not liking me.
I was diagnosed with scoliosis at eight.
By twelve, my spine was twisting
into the squirrely shape
of a loopy S.
A band of muscles
was beginning to collect
on my back.
It wasn’t a hump
yet.
My shoulder blade
hadn’t protruded—
awkwardly stretching my skin tight
in one place
while folding it into elephant-like wrinkles
in another. My rib cage
didn’t scrape my hip. And
my life of being
photographed from behind,
faceless,
had not begun.
But it was coming.
It was all coming.
And I wanted it to stop.
One evening my mother caught me
in front of my bedroom mirror
standing in my underwear and
holding myself in such a way
that I might look
straight.
Ashamed,
I tried to explain.
“That imperfect reflection,”
she said, “is
all in your head.”
Was it?
This imperfection.
All in my head?
Of course
I thought about Lidia.
Was Lidia’s
missing hand
all in her head?
But Lidia was missing something.
That was real.
I wasn’t missing anything.
I had a spine.
Two facts Dr. Sowah
gave me when I was eight:
1. In most cases of scoliosis
there is no known cause,
and
2. In all cases,
there is no cure.
This second part brought me back to
God.
I prayed.
Lidia prayed,
too.
For my spine.
Not her hand.
Spines having
nothing to do
with hands,
back then.
By the time I turned thirteen,
I prayed only that He stop
the twisting.
Lidia prayed
harder.
And I thought,
Who wouldn’t listen
to Lidia?
I always listened
to Lidia.
He didn’t.
By fourteen, I was begging for a miracle.
Lidia begged, too.
For my spine and
for her hand.
Spines and hands being equal
when it came to miracles, and
breasts and hips beginning to make miracles
more necessary.
By fifteen Lidia said,
“God can
fuck himself.”
I couldn’t help feeling
fucked, too.
I once read that females are eight times more likely than
males to progress to a curve magnitude requiring treatment.
Maybe my mother was right.


The Telescope
THE FIRST THING I SEE WHEN I OPEN MY EYES IS THE STREETLIGHT shining through my bedroom window. The second is my mother. She’s holding a glass of water and saying something about running to the office for a couple of hours. She won’t be long.
The office?
She slides my phone closer to me on my bedside table while she talks about her staggering workload.
She’s going to work?
How it’s been piling up because of all the time she spent in the hospital.
She’s leaving me?
But it’s only my second night home. I’ll be alone. Though not totally alone. My mind drifts to the box under my bed. But then my mother picks up my orange bottle and my heart jumps along with the Roxanol tablets as she removes the cap and hands me a smooth pill.
So light.
Sticking it in my mouth, I sip from the straw my mother holds to my lips and swallow, already caring less about boxes or being alone. The chalky Roxy sticks in my throat for a second, making my eyes tear up. She lowers my shade—halfway, due to her hurry—and I watch her go through a weepy blur.
I listen to her bumping about, getting ready to leave.
The apartment door closes.
A few moments later there is the rumble of a car motor. The crunch of gears. And then her engine fading away.
How long did she say she’d be gone?
I glance over at my phone. It sits next to a bell my mother placed there yesterday so I can ring it if I need her. How many things do I need to call someone who isn’t there?
Reaching out, I pick up my phone, squinting at its bright blue light.
Hitting Messages, I stare at her picture and name sitting second from the top. It’s not at the top because Thomas Aquinas is at the top. Again.
I delete his text.
Again.
I should put my phone down, but my thumb hovers for just a second… and then I’m doing it. Typing her name.
Lidia.
And swooshing it out into the universe.
Staring at the screen, I’m not really waiting. I know what will happen. Nothing. Nothing will happen.
Nothing happens.
Not being able to stand the stillness of it, I press call and listen to it ring. Listen to the mailbox-is-full message.
I call again.
This time, the ringing seems to go on forever. When I hear the click of the robot voice as it comes back on to tell me what I already know, I snap the phone off, not wanting to hear its soullessness.
Instead,