Ana J

“a rose for empathy

can my own beauty reflect off glass
again the pain subsides like matted walls
like hospital halls like gas and pills and sass
never can I dance in balls or prance through malls

my pelvic gird’ survives tacked back intact
i sigh relieved my paralysis stops
there died before my eyes the drunk in fact
who crashed and thrashed and mashed in flee of cops

by grace i stay a higher vertebrate
in this ordered peck of vine and line still mine
my skin and brain remain not celibate
those organs large and whole and sexed and fine

the drunk fared worse in life in death in time
my paraplegia dared curse his crime not mine”
― Miles Garrett