Limb Factory

Despite

             the seeming

                                  singularity of the fetal

sonogram—

                  the wonder, or

                                          despair,

at a murky,

                 undeniable first,

                                            an avoided,

or longed-for,

                         windfall last—

                                              perhaps all

of it has been

                       like this

                                       mass production,

an assembly

                        line, the demand

                                                     a given,

though more,

                       in this place,

                                              in times of war:

the industry of it

                              a study

                                          in loss,

and the argument

                              against it,

                                                the physics

and engineering

                         of what

                                      moves, recovers,

resists, and follows

                             the body’s

                                              original order,

the flux and give

                           of a gathering

                                                    of dust

reproduced piecemeal—

                                      a room for arms,

                                                                 legs, someone’s

specialty

                  the knee,

                                    the foot, someone’s

the hand. And

                          perhaps such

                                              survival has always been

part conjure,

                       part clinical,

                                              the muscle twitch

of quickening

                         a fashioned thing,

                                                       interchangeable—

abject this remembrance,

                                         not begotten—

made.