I’m groaning.
My stepfather comes in
rubs my legs.
My mother comes in
arms folded
standing there
not saying a word
eyes full of tears.
Father looks at her,
don’t worry it’s growing pains.
Doctor hits one knee
with a little rubber mallet
then the other,
whispers to her.
In phone booth, she cries,
Roger has polio.
I fall to the curb
she picks me up,
I’m seven.
In our new home in Long Beach
my mother packs my suitcase,
Where we going?
Ambulance arrives
I’m placed on a stretcher
ambulance roars off
lights flashing
siren sounding.
Car darts in front of ambulance,
doesn’t he know this is an ambulance?
Arrive at LA General Hospital,
rolled into a large room
with fifty beds or more,
I end up in the middle
of the room
talking to a boy
in an elongated crib
like mine.
Now In a room with a doctor,
sticks a needle in my back
I cry
I yell
it won’t hurt if you lie still
you told me it wouldn’t hurt
you didn’t lie still,
boy in bed on other side of room
he’s crying
then he’s not
he’s dead.
Back in the big room,
rolled out onto a screened in
porch,
it’s overflowing
with kids like me,
we’re all sick
we lie there
silent
hurting.
My mother comes
I can see her down the hall
she can’t come in,
another day
she comes in with my father
wearing surgical gowns,
they leave toys
or is that another mother and father
leaving toys?
In an ambulance again
back to Long Beach,
in a hospital room with one other child,
can’t watch television,
Graham crackers and milk at night
aunt
uncle
sister
cousin
talk to me
through the open window,
parents with me in my room.
Rolled over to the clinic
black mask over my mouth
and nose,
breathe
relax
dizzy
can move my legs,
therapists smile as gas passes through,
hot packs on my legs
exercising
dressing
undressing
dressing
learning to swim.
After a month
and a week
finally go home.
In bed for months.
Mother becomes ill
another ambulance
arrives,
she’s
close to death,
arms black and blue
from needles
saving her.
My first escape into another world,
read about Jerry West
and Oscar Robinson,
watched Raymond Berry
and Lenny Moore too.
I will look like them,
I pass into a palace
not attached to my bed
or wheelchair
or to tightness in my legs,
two separate worlds
Which one forms me?
The second one,
it’s Dissocia.
I live there
and visit the world
you think is the only one.
In Dissocia
there is no polio,
in Dissocia
my mind untethers
from your world,
I follow a script
In Dissocia.
Where is Dissocia?
It’s right next to your world,
it’s permeable,
I walk in both worlds,
can you begin to see it now?
I hope so
but you probably won’t
because
trauma at that age exerted
energy in my brain
and passed me
into another world.
When you see me
I’m always
In Dissocia,
but you can’t tell,
I know,
because
I’ve only lately realized it
myself.
* the name of a play that goes between a hospital bed and a fantasy world. Dissocia is a derivative of the word dissociative, as in a dissociative mental split.