Jim Ferris

℞

Hephaestus from Olympus thrown, 
swung his hammer and beat his own. 
—Theocreon, c. 6th century BCE

A poem is a small machine made of words. 
—William Carlos Williams, M.D. 

You can’t beat steel!
—Homeland Steel Company slogan, c. 1942

It’s for your own good
Hephaestus of the Vulcanized foot
For your own good
When Narcissus weeps 
The tears turn into pearls, 
Into crystals, into bullets, 
For their own good 
The redfaced redline banker says 
This hurts me more 
  than it hurts you, 
The doctor says, the saint, the sage, 
The captain of industry,
dismal scientist, reciter of prayers, 
Of laws, hurts me more, 
    acknowledge my 
Pain, burden of power, against which 
Mere fleeting sensation, while actual 
Perhaps, is meaningless, or nearly so, 
Hurts me more, 
and our fate is to believe, 
Belief the glue binds all together, 
For your own good, 
How can we know another’s felt state, 
Felt is the oldest cloth, is it heat, 
Is it pressure holds felt together, 
Never have I felt such a hatter, 
From firmament thrown, crystalline, alone, 
Am I better so, doctor, 
It must be for my own good, 
Am I better now, I can’t tell how
I feel, what do my blood counts augur, 
Wrap the forge in felt, the tears turn 
Into knives, into drones, into cages
For the young, let the healing begin.

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[Image Description: A white-presenting man with short sandy-gray hair smiles as he holds a book. He wears a dark blue hooded sweatshirt imprinted with a rainbow-colored map of Ohio with a rocket on it.]

Jim Ferris

Jim Ferris is author of Slouching Towards Guantanamo, Facts of Life, and The Hospital Poems. Past president of the Society for Disability Studies and the Disabled & D/deaf Writers Caucus, he has received awards for performance and mathematics as well as poetry and creative nonfiction. Ferris was Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio from 2015-2019. He is working on a performance and book project entitled Is Your Mama White? Excavating Hidden History. He earned a doctorate in performance studies and he currently holds the Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the University of Toledo.