Coltrane Ain’t This Blue
My friend, Rae
hears voices.
She’s cool with that,
like John Coltrane
on a tenor sax.
What a little
moonlight thorazine
can do for you.
But, oh my God
agoraphobia
just squeals her horn
off key.
“Is it catching,”
she asks?
Rising from the sofa
besides me,
checking the cushions for
who-knows-what.
“I haven’t been getting out
this past month,” she moans.
Her forehead a hard brown shell
—eyes poking out like a two-headed turtle.
Staring at me.
Dusting her shoulders of imaginary
agoraphobia dust.
Terror now.
“I caught it.
I think
I caught it from you.”
Colonel Sanders Tries to Help an Agoraphobic Mail a Letter
I know
you wish to help,
Colonel Sanders.
But, I tell you
the far side
of the street
is like another country:
Cuba or Spain.
I can’t just
cross over.
I would go to the white lines
and faint.
The space is too much for me
though the mailbox
is right there
twenty feet away.
Oh stop
looking at me
like I should be
the punch line
to “why did the chicken cross the road?”
O.A. Fraser is a writer living in Hyde Park; some of his current work explores mental illnesses as hidden disabilities, the constellation of anxiety disorders in general, as well as the experience, stigma, and quandary of agoraphobia in particular.