Alan Birkelbach: New and Selected Poems

Finding A Wooden Leg In The Road

-44Finding A Wooden Leg In The Road It did not seem like something that should be lost. It was too perfect a thing, bondage gleaming and attached, grain swirled and jointed, all carved toes and painted nails, nubbed, worn and chipped up to the calf. It rested quietly against the curb, not drawing attention to itself, like a tired can or beaten newspaper; my eye had just happened on it as I walked. It was as heavy and strange to my hands as a step-child, full of ghost aches and pains. Had it fallen from some careless pickup loaded with miscellany, (perhaps a theft from some house, grabbing all unsecured items)? Did someone cavalierly toss it aside because he had extra, because there was a newer model, more life-like, more attractive? Was there dancing in the middle of a wish-filled night, as that lost limb, like a lizard, grew back? Had someone adopted a leaning life, now bound to long skirt and overcoat instead of a foreign stick? Or, if I listened closely would I hear, a block or closer away, a rhythmic scuffing as of someone fretting on his overworked heel, wondering, wondering …. ...