Entire Of Himself Poem by Susan Adams

We live here - 'Raphael, '
a leprosy colony in India.
The 'caste' means we are both cast
to the separation of ordinary.
I use a bicycle like an artery
Grover cannot leave.
His wheelchair is an island
the palsy a moat that tightens straps
of ever diminishing freedoms.

Head rides its spine
in complicated maps of direction,
flower on stem, blown. His stretched mouth
impossible staccato.

I wait for Grover to settle from the agitations
of good morning. Arms fracture air
he dribbles laughter onto twisted limbs
wrapped into a parcel with himself.

The mind is a line.
Wobbling, tied, he aims his tenth finger at the
keyboard. Time is needed to connect to the key
but over time
has published seventeen chapbooks.
Escapes, letter by letter.