On Passing

Don't say passing
and expect me to
understand.

I won't.

Not because
I wouldn't have tried.

There were just
no in-between
tight rope worlds
to which to flee;

No one left to be.

Except
someone else's
outcast.

Or
the me I made myself
to be.

What if

What if
autism is a mistake?

Someone else's
mistake?

Ours;
not theirs.

What if
autism really is...

Flawed communication?

More ours
than theirs.

What if
the Truth

Suddenly
all came
gushing out

Like vinnegar spray
or electric shock
from a Sibis?

What if
they started handing out Nobels


For humanity's
inhumanity?

Who do you think
would win more?

Us or them?

What if
autism is a mistake?


Our mistake.

The choice

I cringed at Daryl's
translucent, blood stained skin

Then cringed again
at myself

Revilling deep inside
against what I thought I had buried
long ago.

Prejudice --
Fears and inadequacies
just under the surface.

full blown in my grimace.

A mirrored image.
A choice to be made.

1965

I remember you,
Mommy,

Singing warm
in the winter night.

Me,
snuggling, sleepy-eyed,
close as I could to you.

Driving with Daddy
in a red Ford pick up.

Always to or away from
the Crippled Kids' Hospital;


Another week's silence.

But then you'd always sing to me.

Beckoning my voice
to join yours in song.

Sweet song.

Unpopular Speech

There is something
in a voice --

Garbled.

Shrouded in a
cloak of incompetence.

Tongue-tied.

And, shackled
by others doubts.

That yearns;

Cries out.

No,
must demand to be
Heard.

Body Politics

What's more a part of
the American body politic?

More fragile?

Compelling
and violable?

Or,
apt to be suppressed?

Than a voice.

Screaming in silence.

Gallant and Gaunt, Their Beauty

Look deep, deep into the eyes of my people:

Caged eyes,
Peering out through the bars of their sanitized,
steel-white cribs.

Do not try to evade their entrancing gaze
for it will not release you.

Look deep, deep into the eyes of my people.
Look deep, deep into the faces of my people:

Ageless but worn faces, scarred beyond the years.
Tenuously connected to bodies,
twisted and bent by gravity's pull and
years of lying supine.

Do not abandon those others coldly ignore:

Look deep, deep into the eyes of my people.
Look deep, deep into the hearts of my people:

Witness their horror, Witness their pain.
Horror and pain your spoken words
will never soothe.

Do not try to explain it away,
they will never believe you.

Look deep, deep into the eyes of my people.
Look deep, deep into the souls of my people:

Feel their soft, entrancing spirit.
A spirit, which time alone will never dim.

Look deep. Deep into the eyes of my people:

Gallant and gaunt, their beauty.
Beauty, your spoken words can never capture.