bringing out all the mothering
in women who wanted to fix
dinner for you and those who
wanted to fix what was a little
to the right of the stump. How
many poems about a vet with
his leg blown off could be
about a half dozen others,
be about strangers? Many, I
hope readers think. You said
when you felt nothing in your
right leg and saw the left on the
other side of the road, you began
to feel angry. One is fair. But
two, you were railing, is too
much. The copter pilot took the
leg and put it under the blanket,
gave you a Marlboro, said it
would be OK, the way one tucks a
baby in with a lullaby or
buries a stillborn. You
remembered his blue eyes,
you said, your own, my bluest.
When you heard of the bad
cells spreading, you must, again,
have thought, It’s over, must
have felt, as I did, Unfair,
too soon.