On the Importance of Rewriting Poetry

When I first started writing "I Bargained for This Wheelchair: Dream of a Pre-life," the initial draft looked something like this:

"In my last lifetime, I danced so hard and fast that God said, 'Next time around, I will give you a wheelchair. So you can learn to stay put. And wait. And watch. And listen."

My poetry teacher interrupted me and asked, "When has dancing been a legitimate cause for spiritual punishment? You don't exactly look like a convict, and there is not enough remorse in your face for that one. Come up with something else. Revision means to see the vision again."

Revising that poem produced a big bang, a big bang that is still happening. The journey to be able to say, "I Bargained for This Wheelchair," and mean it, and to live up to the bargain.

Out of this explosion came this life, this book. A book that, like my life, is still writing itself, and thankfully, ten years later, is far from finished and far from final.

We bargained for our wheelchairs.

While there are still men and women around the world who are viewed or view themselves as Eternal Children, incapable of having an active sexual life, a family of their own, or lucrative work simply because they have a disability, these highly personal poems cannot speak for myself alone.

Even though I have been blessed with the best parents I could have hoped for and a family who believes in the power of imagination, my self-pity once trapped me (and can trap me again) more than my wheelchair ever has. I know of others who have not been so lucky. Their disabilities make them scapegoats for verbal and physical violence and solitary confinement.

We fight for physical accessibility, something that in Mexico is barely beginning to exist. But accessibility must not only concern itself with physical access to buildings. It must also promote imaginative access to spiritual exuberance (which needs no ramps for us to enter).

Nudist Poem

I write to undress myself

to lift the veils

that separate me from this world.

Naked

my scars are not just omens of death they are a calligraphy that signifies I live.

Inside my cells

bees alchemize the black nectars of my pain into honey.

A few drops of their venom makes my blood bolder!

⚦

I am a body

that writes and adorns itself with its own skin. But

my skin too is a veil...

When I have undressed

all the way down to the nakedness of death

what body will I return to then?

Naked I pay tribute

to the way God's swarming hands dressed me for this world.

Oh how sweet and achingly long is this striptease!

I Bargained for This Wheelchair

In a Pre-Lifetime a veiled woman asked me

to dance with her.

Was it a human woman?

A Fairy? God herself in disguise? or my own crazy dream?

I don’t know now

and I didn’t know then. When she touched my hand there was no time to ponder

on who and what. Utter elation

filled us both. A fire was lit in my chest and my feet moved

as fast as possible to keep up

with her swift grace.

Our section of the sky

was our dance floor. And it burned with our energy.

She said, “Darling,

if you keep dancing like that your body will go

up in smoke

and even your next body

will be panting and exhausted from the spasms

of our sheer pleasure.”

“Sweetheart,” I answered,

“As long as I find a way to get up and keep our dance going

I don’t care if next time around I have to learn

to hoist myself on paws!”

“Forget paws,”

she said smiling,

“The way you’re going

you’ll have more luck balancing yourself with the strong third leg

dangling between your loins.”

“What do I care,” I said, “About slowness and stiffness when I know every muscle

is and will

hold steadfast to the aching ecstasy of our dance?

Just give me a way

to keep dancing with you

in this life and the one to come and I’ll gladly pay any price.”

“But” she asked,

“could you really endure the music of a body

that moves slowly?”

“I’ll take

what you can give me,” I replied. “Whatever I can't dance with my feet I'll make up for with my mouth.”

“STOP,” she said,

“Look at what

you are doing.

Don't jump into your second body while you are so hot

your first one has already turned to ash and fire

from the heat of our joy.”

“I can feel my legs melt already,” I said, it’s just the price of beauty

and I wouldn’t,

change a minute of it.”

“You’ve used up

your legs. So I’ll

give you a wheelchair,”

she said. “But with an added gift Poetry will be

your third body

to dance through time

in this world

and into the next.” ⚚