i, scattered, by Anastasia Walker

Synapse (Self-Portrait), by Bill Walker (USA) 2019. Click on image to visit the artist on Instagram.

i, scattered
 
sometimes i wander
thru peacock shimmer
raptor gardens, sometimes
float on a foaming
void under blind masks
tongue like a dead whale
 
sometimes i spill
out the fissures
tangled tendrils of eyes
striped, serpentine
tunnels to—yearning
 
sometimes i crumble, scatter
but sometimes
 
birds, yes, there
are birds soaring
into canyons of sky

Anastasia Walker

This poem appears in  The Girl Who Wasn't and Is (bd studios, 2021).

Anastasia Walker: "i, scattered," is based on a drawing by my brother Bill. Bill was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in spring 2019.  He describes this drawing, entitled Synapse, as “a self portrait based upon my journey through” the disease. A bit about me: a Maine native but an academic gypsy for much of my adult life, I’m a poet, essayist, and scholar living in Pittsburgh.  Poems of mine have appeared in several journals, and my first book of poetry, The Girl Who Wasn’t and Is, is forthcoming from bd studios.  Two of my autobiographical essays were published last spring: “Memory’s Disavowed Daughter” (Fourth Genre 22:1) and “Selling My Record Collection” (Shenandoah 69:2).  Through 2016-17, I blogged for Huffington Post on trans and LGBTQ+ issues, and since spring 2019 I’ve posted occasional pieces on politics, social media, and LGBTQ+ issues on Medium.  I’m also a passionate amateur photographer and musicologist, and love going for long walks and (when I visit home in the summers) swimming in the ocean. https://anastasiaswalker.blogspot.com/