IN THIS DREAM They’re here! I rip the package, pull sheer stocking over toes, ankle, shin, beyond the line where prosthesis extends my leg. This hosiery will animate prosthetic limbs, transform molded resin into skin, skirts soon fluttering along my thighs as I skip on these feet, attract with these calves, no longer rolling on wheels or hiding my legs from pitying stares. I will be normal. Yet as I examine my stockinged leg, I discover the turquoise seam marking the boundary of prosthesis and flesh. Deformed, dependent, tricked by desperate hope, I fold and cry, knowing I’ll never look or walk like others. Perched on a nearby boulder, my Soul-body marvels at the powerful wings unfurling from between my hunched shoulders, grief shrouding me from their luminous tips as they rise toward the sun.
Thank you to the editors of riverbabble for first publishing this poem.
Elizabeth Oakley Weaver 