My Amputation Poem by Richard Lackman

I woke up from the surgery minus my left leg
With searing pain below my hip as if a powder keg
Exploded deep within my thigh leaving nothing there
But tissues sewn together which was more that I could bear

O God why have you chosen me to undergo this pain
What have I done to justify this horrible disdain
What can my life offer me now I am so beset
The sunrise of my life on earth replaced by cruel sunset

Time passes, first the minutes then the hours then the days
As memory of the first few weeks is shrouded in a haze
But slowly I recover and each morning I arise
Committed more to life than to incurring my demise

The pain, so knife-like, so intense has melted with the snow
And now as spring awakens in my chair I slowly go
To the window of my bedroom and the windows of my mind
Wondering if I will be forever so confined

Then spring gives way to summer and my strength and spirits soar
Life's images return to me now clearer than before
No longer does the vision in the mirror cause such dread
No longer must I hide beneath the covers of my bed

Amazingly my life regains familiar normalcy
As I recoil from the depths of my infirmity
And while I know I never will exactly be the same
I still retain my sense of worth and have not changed my name
For I am still the one I was and what is yet to be
Did not die with my left leg but lives inside of me