Phil Shils is a 46-year old physician assistant living in Decatur, Illinois. He’s a member of the newnew pennies poetry collective. His poetry has appeared in Aquil Relle and elimae, and he has work forthcoming in Rattle and the Chocorua Review. His daughter, Lucia, is six years old, non-verbal, and autistic.
holiday poems
1.
Amanda forgot
this year’s
Valentine’s
Day cards.
One of the teachers
said “it’s ok.
it’s not
like they know.”
Amanda confessed
that she’d
remember
if Lucia
could understand.
There were 20
little cards
on the kitchen
counter
scattered like
junk mail.
Lucia
they said
be mine
2.
Amanda said let’s go
get a Christmas tree.
Sometimes they just appear.
There was one year
I went for a nap
the day after I’d
worked hard
and awoke to one
up and decorated.
There were no trees
before Lucia who
doesn’t know
what a present is.
This year I said I want
a squat tree
even a bush
something easy.
Amanda said we
have high ceilings
that suit a tall tree.
At the hardware store
where we got it and
where the college kids
with holiday jobs
smile and look forward
to sawing off the bottom
of the tree and stuffing it
into mesh like a sausage
the older lady in the
booth wearing fingerless
gloves couldn’t care less.
Our bar-coded tree smells
like gin in the car
and we go get Lucia at school.
She helps me help her
into the car where she
flicks the pine tree
with her fingertips.
The needles have
been bent back like scales.
It’s a whole school
of fish in a net.
It’s a green missile
sawn off and aimless.
3.
She has no idea
why we’re all
peering at her
while her mouth
is held open
and her legs
one arm
and her head
are held still
no cavities
in her perfect teeth
for a while she
liked nothing
now she’s hungry
and likes it all
but still one of her
grandmothers says
this is the only little girl
that doesn’t like sweets
Halloween is here again
2 weeks after her birthday
her mother wants to dress
her like a cannoli
I say no one
will know what she is
her mother says
we’ll explain.
absentminded
I picked up the sugar bowl
lid and took it upstairs
instead of the coffee.
That was something I used to
do in the morning with my
mashed up thinking and one open eye
but now it happens at night
when I forget the dogs are out
and awaken to barking at 2am.
Part of me lives in another dimension
where the milk bottle is a match
and the fork is a baby shoe.
It isn’t Alzheimer’s it’s a pre-occupation
with trying to do what’s automatic
that will only get more muddled
as she gets older and the
mechanics of every day
entangle with the drudgery
of the abnormal. The bee flies
to the flower even after its hive is
ablaze and melting. Our will to move her
is all there is right now although we
were willing to be moved to a posy
an egg an acorn or a swing with the
freshness and the arc of her leaping voice.
Hyperlexia Journal 