Robin Kinzer

Goldenhar Syndrome

(1)

Standing in line at the coffeeshop,
I am dizzied with desire. You grip
your calloused hands at my waist,
a lasso of longing. I do not mind that
it takes twenty minutes to reach the
register. It’s late July, the air so humid
that it has actual, physical heft.

(2)

Once you have gone home, I return to the
coffeeshop alone. When I order iced tea,
the barista says: So, that dude I always see
you with— what’s wrong with his face?
I cringe. This is precisely how you fear
the world sees you. I stumble over
my reply, spitting out: Rare, congenital,
lots of surgery. What I want to say is:
He has survived so much, this man I love.
What I should say is just: Fuck you.

(3)

I have waltzed my way down the scarred banister
of your spine. It is fair, freckled, and split
into a silvered line from top to bottom.
This seam is one of twenty-two that kept you
with us: whole and walking, holy and alive.

(4)

At two weeks of age, they grafted an eyelid
onto your tiny, trembling face. Not much later,
they carved out a right ear, inserting wires
through which you could translate the world.
It was a minefield of a childhood— always something more
to ask of your body, some metal rod to slide inside you.

(5)

When you are feeling particularly bad about yourself,
you ask me to kiss the arc of scar tissue that makes up
your right ear. It’s not a subtle request— this desire
to receive love in a place the world has most rejected.
I bend to your ear, slivering the velvet of my tongue
into its crevices, then whisper I love you, I love you,
I love you, into the strong slope of your neck.

Rare Disease Chicken, a Haibun

Father of engine grease, of malted milkshakes, of nubby brown sweaters. Father of short temper
and long love. Father who saves Sister and I his airline honey roasted peanuts whenever he has to
leave us. Father of sawdust kissing shoulders and experiments orbiting space. Father who always
carries at least one pocket-sized flashlight, but usually two. Father who can fix almost anything with
silver duct tape and a little spit. Father, I am sorry that my body keeps trying to outwit yours. It
would appear that we are playing a game of rare disease chicken. I picture myself aloft my partner’s
freckled shoulders in a neon-gleam swimming pool, as you grapple with me from atop Mother’s elfin
frame. Chlorinated water splashes in my eyes, bright green like yours. First, I was sick, and you
were stronger and healthier than most senior citizens can imagine. Then you were sick, and I was
still sick, and couldn’t be there for you. Shame swarms my insides, a dozen wasp’s nests let loose at
once, when I think of how close you came to death. And there I was, un-knowing, flypapered to
bed.

Now you are even more sick, a rare, incurable leukemia on top of aplastic anemia, and we thought I
was finally as well as a chronically ill person can be. Then three weeks ago, I woke to pain so bright
it seemed to blind me even with eyes closed. My entire abdomen, a chopping board, knives
scissoring in and out of guts. How could I possibly remain bloodless, dry thighs? Once the pain
persisted for thirty hours, I limped to the hospital. A complex hemorrhagic cyst, single cherry
clinging to my left ovary— not unexpected given my history. A disease so rare there are 213
reported cases in the world, a disease called mesenteric panniculitis, a disease that may be
autoimmune, can be fatal, but nobody really knows anything for sure— this drops my jaw.

Father, I’m sorry I’m not there for you when you need me most. You are ferociously independent,
working through chemo, meeting up with friends outdoors, and probably wouldn’t take much of
what I have to offer anyways. Still, I’d like to at least try, not again serve mainly as sick daughter,
glued to bed, choking down chalky pain pills every four hours, giving you more cause for worry. I
will go to every doctor’s appointment with your name on my lips. I will whisper Father as I slip
beneath anesthesia next month. Father of first time snorkeling, lobsters scuttling beneath us— Father of
basketball lessons at dusk— Father of pickup trucks, heavy with concrete and lumber.

Father, I will get well
before you can leave us.
Father, I must.

A Piece of His Home

I do not shower for a week after
I learn my father has incurable leukemia.
Perhaps I find the congregations of dirt
and sweat clinging to my skin comforting.

I wear bright blue pajamas printed with fine white
sprays of lilies, and trip over the bottoms, even though
my mother took them up a good six inches. At this point,
quite frankly, I find anything that isn’t a pajama offensive.

I eat greasy Popeyes fried chicken straight from the box,
breaking my vegetarian diet. I don’t care, I just want
to remember my father sneaking us there for lunch.
The way it always smelled floury, like just-plumped biscuits.
The crunch as he devoured wing after wing. The small pile
of leftover bones made me think of witchcraft or dinosaurs.

I used to wear his jeans, frayed at the ankles and knees,
and they were enormous on me. Then I went all hourglassed,
and started stealing his vintage striped Lacoste shirts,
kiss-tight around my blooming breasts and hips,
to pair with over-sized army shorts or black mini-skirts.

Now I tunnel into the excess fabric of my blue pajamas,
pull my fists into the wrists, my face into the neck.
I do not have many memories before the age of nine,
but I remember my father’s face beneath the Cape Breton
sky, awash with stars. A bliss that just witnessing turned soft

the blue-grey stones beneath us. I remember it felt like a miracle
every time there was a shooting star. My father’s hand
would surge into the air, There!, he’d exclaim. Do you see?
And in all honesty, I rarely did see, though my older sister
always seemed to manage it. The magic was not in the flash

of racing light, nor in the sudden starburst. It was in seeing
my father’s face transform, itself turned luminescent. As if
the sky was pirouetting just for him. As if he, father before
astrophysicist but barely, was showing us a piece of his home

that was always there, but always just a little out of reach.

Robin Kinzer is a queer, disabled poet, memoirist, and editor. She is an MFA candidate at University of Baltimore. Robin has poems and essays published, or forthcoming, in Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Wrongdoing Magazine, fifth wheel press, Delicate Friend, Defunkt Magazine, Ice Queen Magazine, and others. She is a Poetry Editor for the winnow, and will begin serving as the Poetry Editor for The Broadkill Review in 2023. She loves glitter, Ferris wheels, and radical kindness. She can be found on Twitter at @RobinAKinzer