"Sonnet when the brain itself can’t hurt"

Poetry
Written By Guest User

By: Erica Dawson

 

The paralytic that they use to keep

you from breaking a limb during the ECT seizure

makes all your muscles ache Something of deep

damage to the fibers How odd to garner

pain from stillness Do my eyelids flutter

at least Does my tongue thrust against the bite-

block protecting my teeth What is the rudder

of the body Fawn freeze flight fight

Home, I lie stiff as I can to feel what hurts

me most The water in the vase is stagnant

Or fake My memory strains to unearth

daughter sister bones echoes fragments

I wish I could remember how that felt

I wish I could remember how that helps

Erica Dawson is the author of three books of poetry, most recently When Rap Spoke Straight to God (Tin House, 2018). Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals and anthologies. She lives with bipolar disorder and OCD in the Baltimore-DC area. She loves art that resists closure and anything cooked with cardamom.

IG

Website: www.ericadawsonpoet.net.
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