Absence & Ache
If this were plain old age --
that ugly, stubborn customer
of all our whittled destinies --
perhaps I could sleep
after watching you struggle to walk.
No hands. No feet.
So cheerful as they bring you
legs of carbon, and plastic and screws.
Your elbows swing like hangers without shirts
in a trailer shaken by storm.
The vacant air, your silhouette
of avid sadness lingering
with cobwebs on the graying walls.
At twelve, you're far too young to memorize
how sunlight blisters verdant leaves,
how clouds deliver piercing hail --
way too young to wear mortality's sleeve
in empty pockets where fingers
should dangle and dream.
© Janet I. Buck
*First Published in Octavo
Tags: amputee, poem, Buck
