Just a Limp, and: I heard you muttered R.C.

Abstract

Just a Limp, and: I heard you muttered R.C. Jesse Holth (bio) Just a Limp If I had to imagineyou—on the table,husked open, peeledback, muscle and tendonshowing, all the layerssliced beneath the skin,the bone, exposed,and the smell it makeswhen sawed apart, smoking,toughly gripped, doctorsheaving limbs—if I had tothink about the metal cup-and-ball replaced, the not-bone, pretending to belongto the body—if I had to thinkabout the sutures, pinchedflesh, raw and purplingalready, squeezed, pressedtogether, pleading againstthe staples, punchedthrough dimples, the longscar, the separation—gaping,accidental, trying too hard,too soon—I might neversleep again. So I pushthe visions away, thinkyour limp is just a limpwhen I see you, because [End Page 91] it would break me to thinkthe body that brought meinto this world is broken,reefed apart, stitched backtogether. I heard you muttered R.C They say my aunt was grey,thin, sallow, before she almostdied— ashen-cheeked, not enoughbreath in her. I wonder if her mother, my grandmother, weeping, sinkingat the thought of burying a child, remembered her sister, dyingyoung, or maybe the time she was taken to the sanatorium, alone, if she thoughtshe would die, too. I know the way all daughters become childrento their mothers, again, when ill, no matter how old they’ve become,like my grandmother, who will soon be turning eighty-five. I’d never reallythought of her as a mother, first, before we were anything, beforewe became, birth after birth, thirteen [End Page 92] in all. We always rallied, but we are notallowed at the hospital, for now, sisters only—hover, listeningfor the sound that means she will recover. [End Page 93] Jesse Holth Jesse Holth is a writer, editor, and poet living on Lekwungen/Songhees and WSÁNEĆ territory. Her work has appeared in over a dozen international publications, including Grain, Room, CV2, and others. She previously served as assistant poetry editor at the Tishman Review and is currently working on two full-length poetry collections. Copyright © 2020 University of Nebraska Press