dyspraxic

limbs find unsteady

rest, weak upon the earth

stirring from the bird-song dawn

gelatin legs of the fawn

crowbarred in traumatic birth

sired unready

dys

praxic ; Greek for

“difficult activity.”

page seven five, DSM five, prior name

“clumsy child syndrome”

precious pathology

how can a jigsaw piece make fingers

feel weak

yet heavy as structural steel

feel fall; clatter

how my brainpan laden with ready-mix concrete

feel in ten thousand places besides

I fall onto sand castles

unto circles counted nine

into journey a journey

a special sunrise, javelin rays

turn every

wall to doors ajar

time did not heal my muscles

yet waited on the fever-bed

a sculpture is not broken

no matter how many swings of the

sledgehammer;

my ulcers dry, crumble into rice

heaved skyward at the wedding

my body fails but it does not betray

I’ve honed being a faggot in a way sports and dance never stuck

working out masculine—disability

perhaps if not a ballerina, my

body does a riveting

performance of homosexual conduct

the manual labor persists

libido explains hand tremors and inexpert

affection—

[a jigsaw is difficult activity

joy-breathed in its completion]