The Malingerer Goes to the Movies (a Dis-Ability Coming-out Poem, for Colin Kempner, and Judith Wright)

Scott Norman Rosenthal

1.

You're sitting there
and it's getting harder to breathe
It feels as if a little man, like a gnome,
has crept up the back of your seat,
and dropped a net into your head,
over your brain...

You glance at the woman sitting next to you,
and she isn’t there…
You look at the screen, and it seems unreal,
like a bad film…

Are you in a theater at all?
Are you in a room filled with water?
ARE THERE ANY PEOPLE HERE!?

2.

Show’s over, you’re in the parking lot,
wondering how to get home….