The Leg Poem

The First Leg

This is the story of a leg
Sure, a man came with this leg
But it’s the journey of this leg
The leg without the man
The leg to and back to the man
The leg leaving the man again
Leg separate again
The leg’s journey alone

Up ahead, so far ahead we can’t see it yet, parallel to this sleepy, smoky shore, on a salt pitted, two-lane nothing of a Carolina highway, an axle wobbles

The story of a leg
First leg out of his mama
Turned back and around, then last leg out
Wobbly first stepping leg
Baseball leg, high school prom leg
Hot leg on leg
Unsteady alcoholic of a leg
Jean leg, suit leg, sun burned leg
First leg in the shower
Last leg out of bed

Silver box semi truck, stumbles, axle breaks, reaches out like fingers, drags through the pavement like sand, rubber strips like skin, and the truck tornadoes across both lanes,
and all this not even loud enough to pierce the bass scream of Harley pipes

This is the leg that walked out on her
This is the leg that touched home plate
This is the leg that kicked a man breathless
This is the leg that wrapped a dozen girls
Leg for gas pedals
Leg that shook through interviews
Leg that broke into three
Leg that walked out of jail twice

Too fast to stop, too fast to this moment, one rider veers left, one slides under the truck, and gravity and centrifugal force, and fate and luck, and maybe Karma and a god or two, and maybe the Carolina highway developers and the makers of faulty axles, all combine to make the man veering left clip the spinning box right below his right hip

Lost leg
Leather clad leg
Boot ended leg
Blood spinning leg
Muscled and boned leg
Leg end over leg
Bouncing leg
Stopping leg

When the friend stood up, and he saw the limb, in the shock of moments, some strange memory surfaced, and the friend in good faith, shoved it under his arm, to keep it warm, for reattachment his brain yelled, warm, warm, he ran to a house, dialed for emergency, while the man, kept trying to stand on the missing’s twin, refusing to see himself as anything but whole, and the friend shh’d the leg, like a baby, a little baby

The medics took the leg
Took the leg’s man
Traveled, leg and man and friend
Cold, blood empty leg
Where is my leg? Where is my leg?
Here. Your leg’s right here.
Reach out, touch your leg.
See? It’s your leg.
It’s my leg. It’s my leg.

The hospital kept the man, the hospital did what it could, the friend stayed with the man, and the hospital and the friend observed the man, and the man observed himself whole again, and he shivered, or parts of him shivered, and parts of him felt goosebumps, and parts of him felt the rough hem of the gown but part of him slept, part of him dreamed of a life apart, a life without the man, while the man dreamed of running, of squishing sand, of the hum of his bike through his body, but one part remembered flying

The leg turned black
The leg rejected the man
The leg forgot blood shared
The leg forgot former knots of nerves
The leg forgot the memories of bone
The leg turned away

The hospital told the man it was over, they said gangrene, they said death, but the man railed and refused, tried to leave, collapsed, and woke up later, lighter, off balance

But this is the story of a leg
There is a place now where there is no leg
And a place where there is