In Their Own Words
Jillian Weise's “Semi Semi Dash”
Semi Semi Dash
The last time I saw Big Logos he was walking
to the Quantum Physics Store to buy magnets.
He told me his intentions. He was wearing
a jumpsuit with frayed cuffs. I thought the cuffs
got that way from him rubbing them against
his lips but he said they got that way
with age. We had two more blocks to walk.
"Once I do this, what are you going to do?"
he asked. "I wish you wouldn't do it," I said.
Big Logos bought the magnets and a crane
delivered them to his house. After he built
the 900-megahertz superconductor, I couldn't go
to his house anymore because I have all kinds
of metal in my body. I think if you love someone,
you shouldn't do that, build something like that,
on purpose, right in front of them.
From The Book of Goodbyes (BOA, 2013). Reprinted with permission of the author.
On "Semi Semi Dash"
Usually it goes like this: Able-bodied poet evokes disabled veteran, or friend in some accident/illness, or figurative language thereof. We recognize these poems and we feel bad. We have been reading these poems since the Bible. It has gotten a little ridiculous, lately, with poems that use amputation as metaphor for Fragmentation or the Dead Father or Pick-Your-Sadness. After years of phantom limbs in various poems, there is now a magazine titled Phantom Limb. I come to this scene as a poet whose leg is a computer. "Semi Semi Dash" is a love poem first, and a protest poem in retrospect. The poem was a gift. It arrived one day and required few revisions. There are many opinions on how to write difference in poems. M says never mention your disability in poems. N says always mention your disability in poems. O says if you mention it, you must define it. P says for the pure poet, identity is irrelevant. Q says they are all liars. R says this is not art. While writing the poem, I evacuated all of these opinions. My one complaint about the poem is that science fiction is an escape. There is probably another poem hiding behind this one.
