Phoenix

    by Christine Klocek-Lim

— immortal fire spirit

For years she didn’t recognize herself, the pain inescapable as wildfire, her consciousness turning to ash over and over again because giving up part of your body is never comfortable. Then the wind, always against her. The ache of her lost leg a thorn in her brain. She had to learn everything all over again like a fledgeling trashing the nest, desperate to fly, stupid with instinct. The sky too big to grasp. Sometimes she gave up and crawled on the floor, gasping as she learned how sharp a few crumbs could be, the dirt and bruises scorching her skin, scars like indelible ink. She hated gravity, hated the long hours of forgetting because when she woke in the morning, the accident flew out of nowhere, her motorcycle crashing again in full traumatic replay. She’d fall out of bed, drop the crutches, those featherless appendages, pretend she could walk. Now she runs at night when her babies are sleeping. The carbon prosthetic cutting into bone as darkness extends its road ahead of her into infinity. Sweating and crying sometimes despite the freedom.

© 2011 Christine Klocek-Lim

Christine Klocek-Lim received the 2009 Ellen La Forge Memorial Prize in poetry. She has three chapbooks: How to photograph the heart (The Lives You Touch Publications), The book of small treasures (Seven Kitchens Press), and Cloud Studies (Whale Sound Audio Chapbooks). She is editor of Autumn Sky Poetry and her website is www.novembersky.com.

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