by J.M.C. Kane<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When the building went quiet enough to hear the plaster think,
\nyou came out\u2014jointed apostrophe, comma with legs\u2014
\na punctuation for the places light refuses to edit.<\/p>\n
I used to hate you for the curriculum of scuttle,
\nfor the way you graded every kitchen with a passing grade at midnight.
\nBut then the trucks stopped bringing oranges,
\nand the bread learned how to be a rumor,<\/p>\n
and the water spoke in a grammar of grey,
\nand you were still here, brown as the first tool.<\/p>\n
You have exactly one theology: continue.
\nYou enter the room like a low rumor that survives the truth.
\nEven the broom is tired of being a verb.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t bless you\u2014I\u2019m not that generous.
\nI watch your carapace catch a little hallway sun
\nand think: someone should have told us
\nresurrection would be small,
\nand fast,
\nand unbeautiful,<\/p>\n
And never ending.
\n <\/p>\n
J.M.C. Kane is the author of Quiet Brilliance: What Employers Miss About Neurodivergent Talent and How to See It<\/em> (CollectiveInk U.K.), a celebrated nonfiction work on cognitive patterning and inclusion in the workplace. Disabled, he writes from this learned experience as an ASD-1. His prose work has been published in more than a dozen literary journals and magazines. Kane admires compression the way some people admire tightrope walkers: from a safe distance, practicing only at home. He lives in New Orleans with his family in a house filled with paintings, dogs, and stories that unfold slowly.<\/p>\n
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