Prosthetic

In peaceful levitation,
She looks down
From the sterile ceiling
Upon procedures executed
With cold skill--
Amputations, autopsies--
She watches, coma-like,

                                      But better
To find that faint water stain
Shaped like a small footprint,
Like the one on her Certificate,
And stare at it instead,
Wondering where the child went
Who could walk upside down
On ceilings in her room.

Or did she do that?

Eventually she was cured,
Stitched to a prosthetic body
Very life like,
And released.

See the tricks she makes it do
In a show of Fakir magic:
          Dissolves herself into air
          Impervious to mortal pains,
          Walks barefoot over broken glass--
          Never of this world
          But some days,
                    Good enough to pass.

                                                                 September 6, 2011