The Maynard
Spring 2020

0:00

 

 

A Symptom of Resignation

Another perspective on fasciculation
             is to call it verminosis, an infection

of parasites, because that’s what the muscle
             looks like in fine, rippling tremor,

worms quicksilvering underneath the skin,
             wave of soft-bodied invertebrates

shockeling and davening in service to
             some kind of a higher power. Don’t

research it, my husband says, you don’t
             have [ ... ], as I watch my soleus squirm

like the seventh-grade boy I caught
             surfing the school bus on his skateboard,

his victorious grab of the fender and flipping
             off of the security guard perfectly framed

by my windshield as my car idled behind.
             He wants to prescribe me prednisone

to ease the inflammation, even
             the asymmetry of spasm in the back

I pulled moving boxes from my office:
             a decade of teaching tossed into the trunk.

Reduced to fasces, this involuntary twitching,
             this calf-jerk reaction, is a symptom

of hate. But the first root, fascicle, could
             as easily apply to a bouquet of flowers,

a bundle of autumn leaves, even pine needles
             as it does to tissue fibers. Or reams

of copy paper like the ones I requested
             from parents every year. Or the chapter

of a book, as this one was, dog-eared
             and delineated, the text flagged with codes,

a mutilation of love closed by the same
             hands that had once so eagerly opened it.