Crooked bird
The word used was scoliosis
A curvature of the spine
That led to three days a week in the clinic
The straight backed women wore
Starched white coats and eyes of coldness
Eyes that are blank cold
Give out that signal
Eyes that told us be careful
We walked into bare white walled rooms
Yellow pine floors narrow high windows
Our mothers sat unknowing outside
The room swam with the sickening smell
Of pine maybe carbolic disinfectant
One wall was lined with wooden bars
Yellow pine bars from the floor to the ceiling
We were told
Take off your clothes
Except for underwear
So we sat silently on the benches
A line of crooked birds
We were told to climb the bars
Take our feet off the bars
And hang by our hands
And stare at the opposite wall.
It was a place to straighten out
The crookedness of our crooked backs
We were small thin young children
We did what we were told
We shared this endurance silently
We shared our bravery in silence too
Our courage with stubbornness
So we hung from the bars to straighten
Our crooked backs like birds on a wire
Hanging out stretched
Our arms aching
When the pain of stretching
Made us cry
Tears brushed away with our own hands
On to bodices and vests
There was no warmth here
The quietness of endurance
We share, fades, spills
On the floor and disappears
It was a place to stretch the curve
And crookedness out of us
We were told to lie
Flat on the yellow wood floor
To flatten and straighten
Those who were unable
Had braces fixed
To their backs
Braces fixed to backs
To straighten
Crooked birds
And so it went on
Year after year
Straightening crooked birds
The walk home was best
A wagon wheel or malt-teasers
A treat for a crooked bird’s braveness
We crooked birds observe
The world at a different angle
We learn to think
Out of the box
Straightened people
Try to fix us in
It is like a fixation straight people have
To make everything the same
And if you don’t fit
You’re just not the same
A reject?
But crooked birds have a different habit
Of turning the world upside down
Looking from a different direction
Giving something more to life
To a world that’s become monochrome
In its drabness
So let’s go on breaking down the walls of boxes.
RAC
