After Treatment
1.
After treatment
the body hangs
a “For Rent” sign
on its dusty storefront,
wondering who the new
tenants will be.
2.
Often I forget our bodies a
re like a kitchen
drawer in my mother’s
organized kitchen: thick, stiff
rubber bands, paper clips,
small packets of tissues, torn
pieces of hope, potential, keys
to unknown doors and houses,
foreign coins, emergency
phone numbers in cursive penmanship.
3.
Like a bee hobbling down the cracked driveway
I am with this knee, so far from where I’d hoped to be.
4.
The dance teacher says:
When we get tired, we all have the same patterns.
The chaos is full of small gestures.
We are all blocked. Admit! I struggle
to admit. I seek the small gestures
within the predictable patterns.
When you admit, says the dance
teacher, you can change, when you don’t,
you stay the same. I try to allow my body
to learn from something I don’t know,
something familiar to someone else.
Maya Bernstein’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Beloit Poetry Journal, On the Seawall, the Ekphrastic Review, Pensive, Psaltery & Lyre, SWIMM Every Day, Vita Poetica, and elsewhere. Her first collection is There Is No Place Without You (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022). Learn more about her at mayabernstein.com