Grace's Thoughts 1940 Poem by Terry Collett

I am lying in the hospital bed,
and it is morning, (I heard the
birds begin to sing awhile ago)
and lie here with eyes closed

(I'm blind) so can pretend to be
asleep, and two females stop
at the foot of my bed(nurses
I presume) . What happened to

her? a voice asks. Her house took
a direct hit in the recent bombing;
they found her in the rubble
with two shattered legs, which

they had to amputate above the
knees, and she's lost her sight,
the other voice replies. O poor
dear, the other says. Yes her maid

died in the bombing, but this
young woman survived, the
second one says, they call her
Amazing Grace. Will she survive?

the first voice asks. O yes she's
a survivor. The voices move away
down the ward, and I lie here,
and open my eyes, and gaze at

the darkness. I feel down as far
as I can with my fingers, and can
just reach where the bandaged
stumps begin. I do this every

morning to make sure they're
for real, and that I haven't dreamed
it, but the pain tells me it's real;
the ache, the itch of toes not there.

I lie here, and think of Clive, and
how we made love that last time,
and I had given the maid the night
off, and it was the last time because

he went with his regiment, and
was killed at Dunkirk; but that
last time we made love was so
brilliant, so utterly wonderful.

Now I may never make love again;
be left an old maid with no legs
and blind, and some days it occupies
my thoughts in my youthful mind.