Clinic visit

She wants to talk about it, I can tell.

She says, Some women aren't allowed to listen to their bodies.

She sits and I stand in silence for a minute, looking at the air in between her feet and the ground. The suggestion ranges anywhere from a possible blunt acknowledgement of sex work, to the suggestion that in a patriarchal society, women have not always learned from social cues to have a female perspective on the female body.

When she stands to walk me to the door, she does so with difficulty. I cannot tell is she has had a leg injury, if she was born with a crippled leg, or if she wears a prosthesis. Her left hand curls in to her abdomen with the palm up, as though inviting herself in back the way she came. Salutations are perfunctory. I want to say: I don't know, but I know. Or, I've been limited in a similar way. Or, I'm proud. I can't anymore, though, now that I'm healed, and have physically exited the community of broken bodies.