Intimacy among Disabled People

Can be poignant. Doesn’t always work,

She said, and then paused. You should know this.

All humans are disabled, but some

More unusually disabled

Than others. Unusual bodies

Get into unusual fixes,

Variations on the usual.

For instance? Her friend asked, curious,

Wanting to push for the intriguing,

Sensory, specific, narrative

Details, but not wanting to appear

Voyeuristic. Well, I won’t tell you

About myself! You know me too well,

And we see each other too often.

But I’ll give you two friends’ for-instance.

They’re still friends, and they were lovers once,

A heteronormative couple.

Oh, don’t look so disappointed.

Anyway, she was tall. He was small.

He was wide, if you know what I mean.

She was exceptionally narrow.

So, although they had the usual

Conceptions of their kind about sex

And what constituted completion,

They settled for something entangled

But not pounding. Point is, they liked it.

Never mind how it worked. It was touch.

It was intimate and erotic.

They both told me so, years afterward,

And that neither one regretted it,

Although they were happier as friends.

Point is, bodily love is tricky,

Just tricky for anyone’s body,

Just not always the same way tricky.

What? We’re in a restaurant! I’m not

Stage-whispering naughty bits to you.

Don’t pretend. I can tell that you want

To ask how were they unusual,

And what were their disabilities.

No, her friend protested. I just want

To know what’s so special about them.

So they had sex without intercourse.

Wow. How unusual. She grimaced.

The point is that bodies differ, but

We just lust to come to agreement.

The thing I think that gets so poignant

For any pairing, any partners,

Is how much our minds want to fulfill

Some story we can feel good about,

Some satisfying myth of our lives

That fits some larger mythology

That we like or feel that we should like,

And our love lives end up part of this,

But bodies just insist and resist.

Her friend rolled her eyes. You’re avoiding

Your own story! Get to the good stuff.