Self-portrait as Market Model of Disability

torrin a. greathouse

daylight ghosting the curvature     of the glowing screen
body slouched into dust     -scented leather     i watch

the man on the TV          a character
                 study in facelessness

spill improbably     like a stomach full of dice
unexpected as the body     becoming punchline

his hand shakes     food falling     momentarily a filth
             of starlings in mid-flight

how we erase     this moment's name     palsy
highjacking the nerves     how no one speaks

when my spoon grace-notes     to the floor     product
of my knotted spine    how it leaves my fingers     numb

& tremor-wrecked     the dysfunction of our bodies
not enough of a hungry      to justify our hands

         our mouths     each defect of us
how any lazy hands can hold     our momentary cures

                           to justify their making

torrin a. greathouse (they/them or she/her pronouns) is a genderqueer, cripple-punk from Southern California. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Black Napkin Press. Their work is published or forthcoming in Bettering American Poetry, The Offing, Duende, Apogee, Frontier, Lunch Ticket, Assaracus, and Glass: Journal of Poetry. She is a 2016 Best New Poets, and Pushcart Prize nominee, and semifinalist for the Adroit Poetry Prize. torrin’s first chapbook, Therǝ is a Case That I Ɐm, is forthcoming from Damaged Goods Press in 2017.