An American with a Disability (poem)

An American with a Disability

Dave’s life

was

a hard one.

epilepsy…

Grand Mal Seizures…

sometimes

his beautiful

face

was smashed

to pieces.

a few times

he was battered

unrecognizable

and covered

in blood.

Dave taught me

what

the term

“healing”

really meant.

one of Dave’s

many horror stories

was that he was

mistakenly arrested

after having a seizure

and being shipped

by the police

to a doctor

50 miles away

for treatment

he didn’t need,

and the police left him

stranded there

without

a ride home.

Dave remembered

waking up

in the hospital

and screaming

out loud,

“Take these damn

handcuffs off

of me,

I am not

a criminal!”

He said the policeman

was too busy

flirting with a nurse

to come over

right away

and take the

cuffs off.

Making this horror

even worse

was that he was transported

with his hands cuffed behind

his back

while his chest

was pressed against

the seat of the squad car

for the entire hour long

journey.

Worse again, was that

he had just had a pacemaker

implanted in his chest

to reduce his seizures.

The police

told Dave's

mom that

he was coherent

all the

way down

to Indianapolis.

If Dave was coherent

like they said,

the first

words out of

his mouth

would have been,

“Please take these

handcuffs off of me,

I am not a criminal!

I have epilepsy!”

Dave Looper died alone in his apartment on or about January 23-24 2002


poem from John Hulse Collected Poems (1985-2015) volume 1