Lateral ambling gait – by Emilie Collyer
RUNNER-UP, GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2024
Square grey city apartment
Hindley Street Adelaide
with my siblings & mother
for a family funeral.
My bone density report
shows further deterioration
AP spine Osteopenia
& I’m losing height.
City of churches & serial
killers we joked as kids
on long family road trips
to visit Lutheran relatives.
Mum has nicked her elbow,
a slasher movie blood spatter
streaks her arm & cream
polyester blouse.
Cancer galloped through
my aunt, a few weeks from
indigestion to death. Our
cousin shows a photo, aunt
curled on a bed smiling,
she pats a small horse,
palliative therapy animal,
little hooves on
the lino floor. My cancer
was arrested, I have trouble
with the possessive pronoun.
Is it the kind that will come
back? I asked. Yes, said
neat Frances the oncologist,
that’s why we are so cautious.
One treatment made a clot
so now I am on the one
that is softly eating
my bones. At the funeral
there is a small horse inside
my uncle’s chest as he pulls
something too close to hold.
A large man bear hugs him
from behind, holding firm
in a most unmanly way. We
weep. I didn’t feel a thing
my mother says in wonder
about the tiny gushing wound.
After the service, small sandwich
talk, the Pastor who opposes
female ordination asks about
my feminist PhD. Nobody is
as tall as I remember. Even though
I’m post-modern I believe
in the fallacy of a stable self
so everything that is mortal
about me hurts. What I mean is
I feel how I am becoming her,
neat & agreeable, my body
obedient to medical requests,
my gait the small horse
eager to please. We age.
We are less of ourselves &
more of our past until it
covers our heads in felt.
Please angle your foot more,
that’s better. Ambling gaits
are genetic but can be taught
by restraining a horse at trot
or pace. This year the Synod
voted once more to agree
only men can minister
to flocks. What I mean is
I am my mother’s exoskeleton
but crumbling, unable to hold
her. After cake, my brother rushes
to the car where uncle is being
shepherded back to his
care facility, it might be
the last time to say good-bye.
I am struck by his urgency.
What I mean is, I find a white
flannel, dampen it & mop
up the blood. I’m glad I brought
another shirt to wear. I run
& lift weights, some advice says
don’t do twisting movements,
the spine can fracture, so it’s all
straight lines from here to
the end. Water splashes pink,
I keep twisting & rinsing
until it’s clear.
▼
Image: Pavel Danilyuk/Unsplash
This poem appeared in Island 167 in 2023. If you would like to see this poem laid out in the way the poet intended, order a print issue here.
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