Issue 46: Summer 2019

To a chronically pained body

You modern Ovid, you are the tales/ & the teller.

 

You modern Ovid, you are the tales

& the teller. Pain made metaphor is

pain made real. Reality seldom allows

for it without language. & once worded,

metamorphosis follows. Many will

make of you a narrative. Some curiosity

to interpret. Split the parts apart

for meaning. Question the analysis.

Then comes another with new

interpretation. Definitive theories. Always

back to meaning. And you, called mal-

functioning machine, broken engine, or

some other thing in this new vernacular.

Remember: you have a name. You are

that body, yes, & that story & more & more

& more.

 

About the author

Dominik Parisien is a writer, editor, and poet. His recent work can be found in PRISM International, The Humber Literary Review, The Fiddlehead, Arc Poetry Magazine, Riddle Fence, and various other journals. He is the author of the chapbook We, Old Young Ones. Dominik is a disabled, bisexual French Canadian. He lives in Toronto.