Suomeksi, kehosta

I work as a physiotherapist at a clinic in Kallio and my patients come to me with things that are entirely physical and also entirely not. A woman who has had shoulder pain since her mother died. A man whose lower back has been wrong since he changed jobs. I treat the body. I cannot ignore the rest. Poetry is where that goes. Clinical notes are specific and contained. The poetry is the form where I get to say what I actually noticed, which is not the clinical finding but the way a person holds themselves when they describe what happened to them. I write in Finnish because Finnish has a specific relationship with the body that I don't think other languages I know have. There are words for physical states that have no equivalent. I use them. I live in Vallila and I write on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. My poems have been published in *Tuli & Savu*, which is a small Finnish poetry journal, and in a couple of online venues. I've given a reading once, at an event in the Kanneltalo cultural centre, and it was fine, meaning the words survived being spoken aloud, which is not guaranteed. I have enough material for a pamphlet. I haven't sent it anywhere yet because finishing it would require deciding what it's about.