Jim Ferris

FOR HIMSELF

Listen to Audio Version.

the crackle of pity tenses
    the electric air
he wants me to limp for him, he wants
     to see me limp
in everything I make, your work
     must be honest
and authentic, life can be hard
     and he wants to watch,
perhaps to smoke a cigar or a bowl
     while he watches,
the syrup of pity oozes
     into the pores,
amber is his favorite color, it goes
     so well with gold —
he is publicly disappointed
     when I don't dance
his way, when I can no longer hold my head
     up,
I imagine his smile.

Jim Ferris is author of Facts of Life and The Hospital Poems, which Edward Hirsch selected as winner of the Main Street Rag Book Award in 2004. His book Slouching Towards Guantanamo was published in 2011. Ferris, who holds a doctorate in performance studies, has performed at the Kennedy Center and across the United States, Canada and Great Britain. His writing has appeared in dozens of publications, ranging from the Georgia Review to Text & Performance Quarterly, from the Michigan Quarterly Review to weekly newspapers. Past president of the Society for Disability Studies, Ferris holds the Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the University of Toledo.