Scoliosis

          Unplugging the bathtub drain with my curved toes
          numb, where I cannot bend to reach, learning this and
          to have self-esteem, even with legs unshaved, toenails
          grown long, hair unwashed, wound crusting over, blood
          in my mouth from intubation back of the throat scratch
          letting the cup half-full, fall and shatter with stunted reflex
          letting someone else to tidy the jagged edges, as I contend
          with mending my own, placing the odds on myself, even
          as the doctors explain the risks, explain the need, to once
          again sharpen their knives.

Just Discovered

          I am the lean in the tilt
          all curves on curves
          twin outward spirals coiling
          nautilus shell rounds

          I am organic amoeba
          rough sketched pantomime
          spin art chrysalis in neon
          colors, glow in the dark
          stars, backlit bioluminescent
          rhapsody blues

          I am the crunch of ponderosa
          pine, rosemary, yarrow, wild
          mint, the suave of plumeria
          on the breeze, the overblown
          palm frond left roadside
          like the unnamed flower, I am
          just discovered.

Kelsey Bryan-Zwick is the author of three chapbooks, the most recent being Watermarked (Sadie Girl Press, 2015), a hand bound edition which intermixes both her poetry and art. Disabled with scoliosis from a young age, her poems often focus on this perspective, giving heart to the antiseptic language of hospital intake forms. A graduate of UC Santa Cruz with a B.A in Literature/Creative Writing and a Pushcart Prize nominee, Kelsey’s poetry appears in Lummox, East Jasmine Review, Then and Now, Storm Cycle, Cadence Collective, and Eunoia Review.
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