by Mike Knowles
The Parrots
Uncle, a rare meningioma chewed your spine, a vicious chance,
& burned you, a high school star athlete to wheelchair. Paraplegia.
I (your youngest niece) didn’t know how to talk about it.
What words arced my lips? I’m afraid you might die. I’m afraid to talk about your
wheelchair, which is another you. It’s a lie to say, I have hope. Wheels
on either side of you, a metal chariot, took my speech.
It carried your illness. Thing is, you defined wheelchair panache.
You beat the TABs (the temporarily able bodied as you called
everyone else) at billiards, snaking your sleek contraption
around the table like it was a trendy add-on, while the standing stumbled
with their sticky feet & awkward drinks in one hand. I visited you
in your two-bedroom place with the flattened carpet
& hospital bed, Amazon parrots squawking in converted window cages.
The great parrots, with wrenching beaks that could tear wood,
fluttered green, red, raucous. They spoke for me in endless
overlapping chatter & grey tongues, screamed my pain. I saw you weren’t
the caged one. Your lopsided smile, pulled up at the corner, could
not be bolted down or metalled. The wheelchair that was
you but not, you rode like you designed it just for kicks and built the damn
thing yourself. It was me in the cage, my fear for you, my fear of
what was happening or might happen, & I was grateful
for the yelling of parrots, as they culled the chaos inside me, they were
my wheelchair, you could say, so I could find my way to move
forward, just as you had yours.
Lady with an Ermine
On a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci
Who is the pet, you or the elf-faced weasel in your arms? Your lover
calls as if he owns you. Maybe he does. You gaze off frame, half-
smile hiding—what. The dark damask sleeves & proper circlet smudge
the mirage. Bodice laced tight up your back, you know what being held
by a string means. How long did it take this morning, to flatten your
rebelling hair for the artist? The story is in your companion, the ermine
right as you let her leap free, open not to receive but to lose. Your
lover bought her for you & all that it means. With a shift of your hands,
you let him know this is a portrait, the gown is heavy & you won’t hold
onto a single thing you haven’t found for yourself.
Lynn Finger’s poetry has appeared in the Ekphrastic Review, MineralLitMag, Night Music Journal, Journal of Compressed Arts, and is forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys and Tiny Seed. Lynn is one of the founding editors of the Harpy Hybrid Review, and also works with a group that mentors writers in prison.
Mike Knowles spent over 40 years working mainly in comics, along with contributions to TV, radio, animation, gonzo-style journalism for a “top-of-the-shelf” magazine and odd spells as a digital artist. Not to mention three gruesome years writing gags for comedians (even though they begged him not to).