Sucker Punch; On Tremor; On Gratitude; My Mother, Post-Proposal; Sabbatical

Sucker Punch

It probably happened more 
than once; hands, less than soft, 
headed in a direction opposite 
of affection. Maybe it happened 
and I let it, or maybe my say in
the matter is imagined, remembered
with more agency than actual. Most 
of it is gone now, the memory like 
a window’s condensation lost
to summer. It probably happened 
more than once, but I remember it 
only once: the quick exertion of a fist  
towards the center of my body, force 
like wind that splits the trees in 
my yard. It was a test of my core 
strength, he would tell me, as I sat 
curling over my living room rug, 
trying to hide the nausea’s climb 
from intestine to esophagus. I 
swallowed whatever was on its way 
up. I wanted to prove I could handle 
anything dealt, even if it meant 
something rupturing inside of me. 
Nothing did, rupture I mean, but I can 
remember hoping it would, that this 
thing out of my control, anything out 
of my control, a burst organ or meteor 
or else, could put an end to us in 
the way I didn’t know how
On Tremor

Most days, the biggest burden is putting on 
a band-aid, or fastening a belt, an impossible 

necklace: the small things reminding me what
a body is supposed to do. Sometimes I am 

the belligerent woman in the store, the pharmacy, 
at work, fumbling, in front of an audience, my wallet 

out of my purse, ID out of my wallet, out of my hands 
and onto the counter, the floor, whatever there is 

for poorly handled items to fall to. I am the drunkest 
abstinence, the spilled wine glass, the split dish, 

the cracked jar of pasta sauce in an otherwise quiet 
grocery aisle, disabled by all of the buttons in the world. 

I worry the witnesses, the unfamiliar, the DUI checkpoint, 
the introductions I dread like diagnosis. If we are 

what we eat then I am all fingers, all hands, all scraps 
of parts held steadiest by mouth. I am the elderly 

without empathy, the pregnant, young and healthy, 
the supplements and essential oils someone’s aunt 

swears by, all of the superfluous healing envying 
the eased mechanics of waiters, surgeons, painters. 

In my closet, I am crippled. In public, I am reason 
for concern, uncertainty, audacity. I, the supreme 

ambiguity. At least the extra limb would have a name, 
know how to carry a plate, hold a pencil. What is the body 

if not a refused caption? The only bathroom 
in the building, and its door handle broken. 
On Gratitude

Blessed I am to not be twenty two
shoveling confetti cake into my mouth 
from the kitchen floor after a birthday 
party he showed up to three hours late.
Blessed I am to not be twenty two 
with the role of animal at feeding time, 
a fish with its gaping mouth fixed open, 
a forecast of indefinite storm, the present 
refusing future. Blessed I am to not be 
twenty two and a body insatiable,
a stomach half empty, a gallbladder 
sick with stones. Blessed I am to not 
be twenty two and only exist at the end 
of somebody’s day, a weekend question 
mark, somewhere between a morning’s 
extra hour and an orchestrated escape.
Blessed I am to not be twenty two, 
delicious and devastated and full of his 
saliva, purple haired and flailing, blonde 
haired and translucent, a diorama of guts 
and fluid, a performance of digestion on 
display. Blessed I am to not be twenty two 
and horny only for the things that hate me, 
that ignore me, that rather me dead,
that do not call first, that cross the street 
without me, that are always five steps ahead 
in public. Blessed I am to not be twenty two
begging the bathtub drain to swallow me, 
the bed to suffocate, the earthquake to 
collapse the house above me. Blessed 
I am to not be twenty two, or twenty three, 
or nineteen, or any of the ages I let men 
utensil my bones, when I existed only 
to be available, to be a meal or less than,
a drink before bed, a bed, the whole home,
the world’s end, the last bit of earth
to touch feet. I was a girl and a field,
sun-soaked and splintering. The years
happened, the planet moved. When 
things couldn’t be worse, they got better
My Mother, Post-Proposal

Leaning up against a glass table,
peach placemat under the silver ice bucket,
her legs point like a compass towards
the camera, lean and longer than mine

have ever been,or will ever be. 
I used to be smaller than you are now,
she tells me unprompted, after
a minute or two of sizing up my shape.

Two shoe sizes less before I came 
into the picture. it’s frightening
to think what the creation of another 
can do to feet and their width.

Her shirt has the pigment and body
of the late eighties, hair, too.
A single flower stands in a vase 
behind her, plastic, perhaps.

In the hours before the capture, 
there was a bubble bath, and a small velvet box
housing a question. My father
had planned a ride inside a hot air balloon

but decided against it. He was afraid
she might drop the ring if it were presented
from such a great height. People tell me
I don’t look much like her. Her wrists

appear delicate in a way 
mine have always refused to. I have 
the wingspan of a grandfather
I have never met. I would imagine

my parents covered every square 
inch of that hotel room in celebration
that night. They would tell me that 
after their wedding they sat nude 

on the bed counting their money. 
I wasn’t there on either occasion,
except maybe in cells. The picture,
likely printed at a CVS or elsewhere,

looks like Palm Springs and the prediction of thirty 
years. Of course there were breaks, one 
longer than the others, but we don’t talk 
about those. We could, but we choose not to.
Sabbatical

My dad moved out and took the dog with him. 
It was my senior year of high school. He slept 

on an air mattress on the floor of his office and I slept 
in their bed with my mom. Miraculously, they would 

eventually reunite and live like that year never happened, 
but that year happened. The timeline is off, but I remember it. 

The house was still, there were wine nights, and my 
mom weighed less than I did. I know it was fall, 

because I dumped my boyfriend for being too distant, 
busy. His best friend’s parents were separating. Holidays 

and school breaks are where I get mixed up. Somehow 
we ended up on vacation together twice that year, 

but the how is lost on me. I remember California ending 
poorly, but not the reason. In May, I turned 18 and there was 

a grocery store cake. They would figure out their problems, 
whatever they were. That, or they were too lazy to entertain 

the thought of whoever would come next. My mom gained 
the weight back, I went to college. They went back 

to sharing a bed like they never stopped. I remember 
the year but not well. Maybe it was the medication 

that stopped working, or the sex I didn’t want but was 
having regularly. I binge ate Dominos pizza and graduated 

in some underwhelming percentage of my class. I walked 
across the stage and let someone grope me on the bus 

back from the celebratory bonfire. It’s almost like 
that year never happened, but it happened. 

There’s pictures that tell me it did. 
I’m in them, but I can’t say much else.

*****

Danielle Shorr (she/her) is an MFA alum and professor of disability rhetoric and creative writing at Chapman University. She has a fear of commitment in regard to novel writing and an affinity for wiener dogs. Her work has been published by Lunch Ticket, Vassar Review, Hobart, Split Lip, The Florida Review, etc. and is forthcoming in The New Orleans Review and others.