By Anita Tanner
Lopsided life,
designed to make us lame,
to rupture our vulnerabilities,
teaches us to walk with a halt,
turn toward the grave
hunchbacked and clubfooted,
left eye nearsighted,
right eye, far,
disproportionately dealt
by fate’s slings and arrows—
left-handed, right-brained,
even our faces are asymmetrical—
deviated septa, long crooked noses,
men with eyebrows not horizontal,
vertebrae not vertical,
women when pregnant leaning backward,
when old, forward.
We’re all being torqued by time,
turned and turned like corkscrews
pressed deeper and deeper into earth,
diamond drill bits:
Philip Careys, Cyranos, Quasimodos.