well, how are you now?
a stranger asks me this,
about my "stroke," and i realize
i struggle, always, with this question,
saying, i'm okay, i think,
except i never stuttered before
over ridiculous questions and ...
well, okay ... there is that thing,
that thing about money ...
... how it doesn't look the same,
like it was completely redone
and duly printed and minted
during the five days i was held,
prisoner to an iv, reducing brain swelling,
locked in icu and on monitored wards
while the whole nation was reissued
coinage and paper money en mass ...
but i missed the mega-redistribution,
my only way to explain how foreign-faced
american coin and paper money has become,
making me nauseous, unable to make change,
always giving the clerk the highest bill
and ignoring the leering faces on coins,
taking all the change home to a waiting
container, shaped like an alien -- how fitting,
and when the alien's guts are full to the top,
i spill all the noise out at the bank
to be recounted by the official machine,
which of course has been updated,
and counts the new coins because i can't,
and i'm issued precise paper
which still looks f***ing ridiculous
but somehow is easier to deal
--and so really, otherwise, i'm fine,
i don't think there is any "residual"
and the lady, a perfect stranger,
says she thinks this *must* be
"residual" and she says it in all CAPS
which is pretty much like yelling,
"RESIDUAL!" --like screaming out loud,
"YOU ARE STILL ALL FUCKED UP."
and so i thank you perfect stranger
for all your small talk and questions,
serving full well to remind me
that i'm slightly off-kilter,
nowhere near feeling normal,
and i can't remember the baseline
when the market exchange
looked like something i could use,
and i felt anything akin to confidence,
so i think from now on i'll use beads
for all further transactions.



...."What is this vulnerability? It has nothing to do with who I am." May Sarton from her journaled book "After the Stroke."