For the last year, The Disability Files has existed as a monthly letter written by a guest artist from the Disability community, answering a question posed to them by a friend, colleague, or stranger. For this issue, we wanted to share a poem written by one of our members.
Dear reader,
I've finally settled on a poem for you.
It's called "Struggle Dog," and I wrote it about a dog called Daisy Mae, who passed away this summer at the age of 14 (old, for a big mutt like her).
Daisy is part of my COVID bubble. I took care of her a lot during the last months of her life, during a time when I needed a lot of care too.
She teaches me that sometimes care is unpleasant (like her diarrhea weekend) and that, as my co-mentor Sean Lee says, disability is not isolated in the body.
I think Daisy Mae would agree that disability exists in the complicated space in between our bodies, where things like what Mia Mingus calls "access intimacy" are made.
I hope that you like it.
Thank you,
Birdie
Old brown dog
my new therapist asked me
if I love you so much 'cause
sometimes, you wanna die too
When I found you in the yard like that I
wonder now if I knew you were hurting
with only the calm clarity of someone
who protests like that too
Old brown dog
I think my new therapist
is worth the money,
like how when I see you sometimes and
there's new kinds of dog food on the counter.
You're not eating again, but I know that
buying you salmon and steak must be worth
the money too
My old roommate said:
old dogs are closer to God.
I think I believe my old roommate
in the way that Kai Cheng Thom
says all trans women are witches
and unfortunately, Caitlyn Jenner too
Old brown dog
my new therapist asked me:
so what if old dogs are closer to God? I think now I would tell you
old dogs lead us to death
and all that can happen when it happens
and when we hurt less, that's political too
Old brown dog
I know I don't know Leah
Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
either
but I know that they say
of dead trans girls
that grief can be the garden.
Oh, old brown dog
do you see my protest?
Do you know now I sleep
with Care Work
under my pillow too?
