People ask me what I do.                                         
I tell them I labor to reconstruct                             
feelings of touch for the gathering wreck              
of the maimed, who’ve lost limbs: fingers, hands,
toes, feet, arms and legs, any broken,                     
dismembered portion.                                                                                 

Admirers nod and bow, impressed.                       
I receive their kind regard, but ponder – how                   
long before some bankrolled hustler offers                      
the sensation of groping hips, smashing                
skulls, gouging an enemy’s sockets?                                  
How long before                                                       

my study becomes one more                                              
progress turned product, another naive                
wunderkind, born to heal, distorted and               
sharpened to steal, burning spirit to harvest                    
material and crypto caches of                                 
shadowy might.                                                        

Perhaps some lesser, but nobler                             
maker might wrangle up wonder-                          
fingers on the face of decades gone sons               
kisses pressed into palms and flown into              
shadows of longing that prowl every wound                    
in the hearts of each widow and orphan.