She Doesn’t Seem Autistic

How could other parents understand

she can’t regulate, can’t dress, screams in wind?

Their girls touch down, their modules steady, small footsteps

breaking the moon-sand’s surface, their milestones

cosmic miracles of the ordinary. We long

for their basic okayness, their assumption

that the whole team will walk on the moon,

get to jump, twirl in the applause, treasure the video.

With her characteristic heart and power, the winner of the Tim Thorne Prize for Poetry turns her attention inward in this new poetry collection, creatively illuminating her own hidden autism and that of girls and women, most of whom are misdiagnosed and unsupported in a medical system designed for boys. Every page will surprise and move you.