tilt test cheerleader

Kristia Vasiloff

i am 70 degrees tilted
the angle is unbearable
the hands of the doctor
on my sternum are bearable
as my leg reaches out
to meet at 90 degrees failing every time each muscle too busy explaining itself to all
other surrounding muscles
leaving my body glitching
gurney tight straps
on my chest and above
my ostomy fish flopping
3 nurses grip
my armpits the lucky
last one takes my
nadir of a blood pressure
i still wonder if whoever typed
my notes face lit by blue screen tired fingers sweaty from purple gloves was an english major before becoming a doctor
the room still and liminal lends acoustics my cello playing
brother could only dream of
i am attempting language
my pointer and middle finger pursuing an H
top fingers and thumb
closing in separated on an E
the tall nurse only recognizes the E says the patient's signing E
pretty explanatory is L
but everyone is bubblegum
and silent i convulse on P
turns out looking more like
a K maybe i was trying to spell K all along fill the room
with cheer stances slumping stadiums screaming my name

The Science

The Tilt Table Test is a way to test postural malfunctions in the cardiovascular system. The patient will be strapped to a table and manually tilted while both blood pressure and heart rate is recorded. This poem explores language through disability, sensory and motor malfunctioning, and body. Sign Language (ASL) is often thought to be only used by the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HOH) community. But we know through child developmental research that brains can process language even when motor skills, like mouth and tongue development, are not yet able to produce sentences. This touches on the same concept - what happens when the nervous system malfunctions and what becomes of language when sensory and motor abilities are inhibited? In 2017, Papanicolaou et. al published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, in which they stated that"...linguistic analysis begins almost synchronously with sensory, prelinguistic verbal input analysis and that the primary cortices...become, consequently, part of the left hemisphere language network during language tasks." In this poem, as sensory and motor function is lost due to disability, language becomes paramount. 

The Poet

Kristia Vasiloff is a disabled, queer poet and ex-neuroscientist living in North Carolina with her amazing Spouse. She writes about reality, mortality, and disability. She has appeared in presses, anthologies, magazines, and is a Poet Laureate Award Finalist with the North Carolina Poetry Society. Kristia is honoured to share her poetry with y’all.

Next poem: What We Mean When We Say Bell Curve by Ewen Glass