The mother said that rickets
bowed the boy’s legs.
The father said, no, the boy
was born that way.
The doctor said
he planned to break the boy’s legs
at the knees, but
the mother’s prolonged illness
postponed the doctor’s plan,
and while delay did not cure the curve
it made the knee break needless.
Time in fact almost
straightened the boy’s standing,
adding a good inch
to his slender height.
Still, even the slight bow
embarrassed the boy,
who walked in an awkward way
to minimize the bow.
Other boys ragged him,
asked where he parked his horse.
Young girls whistled, older girls teased
his pleasure bent legs.
The hapless boy grew to manhood
in this parenthetical state,
went to war
and disguised the bow
in salty bell bottom trousers.
The day the war ended
was not a celebratory day
for the young man who survived
to live again the shame of legs that
should have been broken at the knees
when he was a boy with rickets,
said the mother,
or was simply born that way,
said the father.
And though he managed a few good years,
swerving, skewing, arching along
life’s bowdeviled path,
creating wondrous things with words
that the Bard himself
might have likened to a fantastical banquet,
he died rewriting himself
at a superannuated age beyond
the most optimistic mortality curve.
A wag announced he fell off his horse.
The mortician broke his legs
to fit him perfectly, knee to knee,
inside the long narrow box.
A mourner said, what a pitiful sight,
another nodded as he gazed
into the open box and said, yes,
but what lovely legs!
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Patti Martin
Carole~
Love,
Eileen
Peace, love, and light,
Amber "V"
youve rendered me speechless.
.. ..
i. ..
yep.
ness
I find myself pulled in several directions here, the stark reality of it all, the possible autobiographical nature, the humour, dark humour to me, the wonderfully recurring father/mother motif, the brilliance of the second last stanza and the irony of the last, and I'm left with a bittersweet aftertaste. The entire narrative's poignant and as expected beautifully delivered.
John
No pain, after slain...Ed
(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.
Sage
What a sad thing to happen. To live through that, and no one ever knew it didn't have to be. Excellent Write.
Mary
(((HUGS))) and much love, your friend in Tx., Karen Lynn. :D
What a story this is!!! And this is so well told!!!
However, I might just add one thing that in life it's the parents who make the children feel inferior, so the child is more conscious of the flaw that others don't see in him.
It doesn't matter how one's legs should look, it's about the way how tall one should feel when walking in them.
Sandie Angel :o)
stan