Kay Ruane
(
--- for Kay
Like me, you have two bodies.
One as beautiful as a Cuban sunset.
The other, hidden from view by surgeons and technology.
You explain how the wire like a thin vein plugs to your spine,
travels subcutaneously around your waist.
Emits electrical pulses that switches your bladder
on or off. How fortunate. Our bodies accept
metal and rubber, clamps and tubes, what we need to live.
All because of one evening in Detroit, 1990, when fog
pasted the seconds before the crash to memory.
Another 747 taking off slices open the fuselage
of your plane from nose to tail with its wing,
making the sky the ceiling. Stars explode
like light bulbs; the moon careens out of control.
Clouds of smoke begin to rain gas, and a meteor
rolls toward you, in slow motion, from the rear of the plane,
igniting passengers like candles in the aisle. It isn't God
that abandoned them to flames and spared you,
but a random bump and push
just when the emergency exit swings open,
and throws you clear of the wreckage. That is why
we are grateful now. Leave a hearty tip for the waitress.
And once outside you gesture to the sky, clouds;
curl your finger and punctuate the air, as if typing:
Here! This is good! This is what I meant to write.
Richard Solly, a professional writer and teacher, lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has received numerous grants and awards, including the Bush Artist Fellowship and several Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships. His most recent book (with Yvonne Pearson) is The Way Home: A Collective Memoir of the Hazelden Experience, (Hazelden, 1997). His essay "The World Inside" recently appeared in the anthology The Healing Circle: Authors Writing of Recovery (Penguin, New York, 1998).
Kay Ruane (the subject of Two Bodies) has had her work exhibited across the United States, most recently at the College of William & Mary's Muscarelle Museum. She has received the McKnight Foundation Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest Fellowship, and the Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship. Her work was recently published in New American Paintings. She is represented by the Lyons Wier Gallery in Chicago.
