Post-MS, my legs are clumsy,
half-numb. Dumb to earth’s
unevenness, I stumble to the shore.
Half-in the water is hardest. Currents pull,
seaweed sways, leads me this way and that.
I trudge through unseen mud.
But then the feet lift, turn to fins.
My movements grow smooth. Cool fingers
of water stroke my limbs.
Now all is calm. Swallows swoop;
dragonflies hover. I’m a slow-moving head,
no threat. Fish pass oblivious.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Coming out, my legs have forgotten
to be legs. Thigh muscles cry weakness. I stay
horizontal almost to the shore.
When I stand, my knees tremble. Birds take flight.
Bent over, I wait to regain
my vertical life. And I wonder
what the whales thought, returning to water.
Abandoning legs, letting paws
revert to fins. Did they weigh
what they were losing? Irredentists,
what was the call they heard that brought them home?
Author’s note on “irredentists”: For this metaphor I am indebted to John Noble Wilford, and his delightful New York Times article, “How the Whale Lost Its Legs And Returned To the Sea” (May 3, 1994).
“Amphibian” has appeared in
— The Blue Nib, Issue 39 | Sept 2019;
— Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Sept 2019;
— The Reo Town Reading Anthology!: Rejoice, Everyone!, October 2020.
HIVES 