Eli Claire: The Marrow's Telling

I pour a bath, dissolve a handful of mineral
salts, catching each crystal in the stream of hot
water, crack a window, try to light the candles. They
float in a bowl of water, and as I touch match to wick,
my hand jumps, tremor climbing the ladder of my
arm. I swamp one candle, then the other, give up.
Strip my clothes—t–shirt, high tops, jeans, boxers.
Pull off my binder, breasts coming free. I think about
the not–so–long–ago laws against cross–dressing,
about old–time butches and the price they paid. Their
stories of bar raids, strip searches, jail cells scare me.
Heat stings. Right arm loosens, body buoyant.
Tremors rock water, no longer locked in shoulder and
back. I finger the appendectomy scar stretched from
navel to pubic hair, a thick, ropy trail cut down my
center. Cup the knobby glob of tissue on my right
knee, remnants of one fall among thousands. Trace
the ridged line across my left palm, mark of a chisel
slipping from wood to flesh.
Except for that thick ropy braid, my scars don’t
come from a surgeon’s scalpel, an unusual circumstance
for anyone physically disabled since birth. My
quad muscles were never cut, sewn back together.
Achilles tendons, never severed. Pins, never inserted
into hips and knees. The bodies of disabled people so
often end up criss–crossed with scars, childhoods
punctuated by surgery. But not mine: my skin didn’t
become a map. For that, I need to go subterranean.
Muscles knotted, tendons inflamed, vertebrae too
sore to touch.

-- 'Scars' from The Marrow's Telling (p. 77)