Ex-Fighter (echolalia)
by Chelsea Dingman
Post-concussion syndrome, or PCS, is a medical problem that persists for a period of time
after a head injury has occurred. This period of time can range from weeks to months
— William Blaud, MD (2015)
Doors & doors & doors
close on summer
heat, hot on the street, bruised
sky hovering over orchids, lavender
hyacinths thrumming with light
in swamps behind the house. Behind
each door, a face he won’t remember
well. How much of history is owed
to memory? & what happens to a husband
who succumbs to the rot in all things?
Will a closing door hide my name
from his mouth? A man can only be hit
so many times before he forgets the sound
a body makes when it hits hard
ground. That another name for wife is
shepherdess. I’m still in my skin.
This still night. He reaches for me
& repeats the name for wind & I am a blade
of grass in his hands. I am the sound
of leaving, shaking the sills. I am every door,
closing. I am a name he thinks he hears, still
surfacing in the river of a mouth.
after a head injury has occurred. This period of time can range from weeks to months
— William Blaud, MD (2015)
Doors & doors & doors
close on summer
heat, hot on the street, bruised
sky hovering over orchids, lavender
hyacinths thrumming with light
in swamps behind the house. Behind
each door, a face he won’t remember
well. How much of history is owed
to memory? & what happens to a husband
who succumbs to the rot in all things?
Will a closing door hide my name
from his mouth? A man can only be hit
so many times before he forgets the sound
a body makes when it hits hard
ground. That another name for wife is
shepherdess. I’m still in my skin.
This still night. He reaches for me
& repeats the name for wind & I am a blade
of grass in his hands. I am the sound
of leaving, shaking the sills. I am every door,
closing. I am a name he thinks he hears, still
surfacing in the river of a mouth.
Chelsea Dingman is a MFA candidate at the University of South Florida. Her first book, Thaw, won the National Poetry Series and is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press (2017). In 2016, she also won The Southeast Review’s Gearhart Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Auburn Witness Prize, Arcadia’s Dead Bison Editor’s Prize, Phoebe’s Greg Grummer Poetry Award, and Crab Orchard Review’s Student Awards. Other forthcoming work can be found in Washington Square, American Literary Review, and Sugar House Review, among others. Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.
