Florida-based poet Carlton Johnson has been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. He published a book titled “A Thimble of Time” in 2020 (available on Amazon). Here’s a poem about his first swallow study.
The swallow
by Carlton Johnson
In fluoroscopy, after a sip of barium,
he sees his little little birdlike swallow
falter in flashes of an eye,
sip from lip to come-hither
tip of tongue—
the gulp erupts like a brick
tossed into a well of mumbles.
Down, down the throat
the cool metal sloshes
around the epiglottis.
Eddies in a small catch basin form.
Water, once friend, now interlopes
in this space of air,
drops down like hardness
to an unarmed pipe.
A cough of dried leaves
rises, spastic. He harkens
for that old voice, now hidden
under brushwoood
where a small song wren
once sang,
gone now,
in this choke of winter.