Two Ways of Saying It

“Don’t you know there ain’t no devil there’s just God when he’s drunk.” —Tom Waits

1/

It started in my right shoulder, a corkscrew pang, running down to the beached jellyfish of my wrist, a loosey-goosey slam – flitty fingers that dart at life like lizards’ tongues.

Soon and ruthless, I was balked, tossed floppy, unable to write myself a wall to lean on. Next thing I knew, Kubler-Ross was whispering her list of contradictions and I was humming along. God, as usual, gone, perhaps Beijing and its killer smog or a cave somewhere in the Middle East.

And here I thought death’s last name started with the big C. Mr. Parkinson instead, a benign old gent, timid as a tremor, voice like a goldfish being poured from a bag.

2/

Have you heard the one about the hand that wouldn’t listen to the brain— just lay there stiff like a 16-year-old’s erection? Forget typing, wiping, copping feels. The football fumbles like a baby seal. No more raking, writing thank you notes, casting barnyard animals on the wall. Just stiffness, knuckles having lost their punch. All the things you can’t do, never knew meant the world to you. Little cabbage whites of prayer, middle fingers rising in the air.