A former athlete reflects on the physical reminders of her years on the court.

When we rose up from the murky water / we'd scale it like lizards.

Oh, uncles, / what zealous men you are!

He ran his fingertips over the walls as he passed, as if it were a new wall to him and he wanted to learn about it, as if it kept him attached to earth, as if he might otherwise lift up slowly and never land again.

i asked this of shame / be a stranger

One simulation to another, am I wrong.

The author on her new memoir, SICK; searching for home; and her struggle to be heard by the medical establishment.

Tell them come take my eyes / Before my body gives out

it was near this piece of ocean bed / where their whale ancestors dealt out the sea / as if they were gambling.

There was the time I found an entire horse or cow skeleton laid neatly on top of the shed roof. When I asked my brothers what it was doing there, they looked at me patiently and said, We found it in the desert.

The baby stayed in the desert. I myself stayed in darkness for a long time.