{"id":1902,"date":"2021-09-14T19:42:21","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T02:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=1902"},"modified":"2024-11-25T13:06:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T21:06:24","slug":"switches-and-what-pain-doesnt-know-about-me-by-gail-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/switches-and-what-pain-doesnt-know-about-me-by-gail-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSwitches\u201d and \u201cWhat Pain Doesn\u2019t Know About Me\u201d by Gail Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"84-cover-for-web-lower-res-1\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 84<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to\u00a0Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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\u201cSwitches\u201d and \u201cWhat Pain Doesn\u2019t Know About Me\u201d by Gail Martin<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Switches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first doctor offered<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to remove both ovaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One minute the lake is flat,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the next the wires on the hoist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where the boat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

floats are humming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ordinary pleasures:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A card game, straw flowers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the horizontal plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vertically, silent cells<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rev up production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man driving from California<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to Michigan refuses to turn left the whole trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something ruthless is accelerating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our bodies, cozy as beaver dams,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

start to seem unfamiliar, property<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rented for a season, light switches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

our fingers can’t find in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Pain Doesn’t Know About Me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

How I visualize him as a rooster. How I nickname him Sparky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My rabbit-heart. How it looks motionless in the bank of clover<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but secretly continues to nibble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can tell time underwater. I sing hymns there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s not pocketed my vanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My history with onions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My skill at parallel parking. Cigar-smoking men have been<\/p>\n\n\n\n

known to applaud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are not intimates although we\u2019ve slept together. More<\/p>\n\n\n\n

like roommates forced to share the cramped space of my body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even now, in my freezer, I hoard a bag of rosy peaches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

frozen whole. I skin them holding them under hot water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If hit with black light, I glow like the blue scorpions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

used to treat cancer in Cuba.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":1904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1902"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37073,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions\/37073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}