Sunday 5 October 2014

Post the Hundred-and-Eleventh - Letters to my Legs I

Since I posted on the first I've had some really busy days. On Thursday I spent three hours getting fitted for a new chair and seating - at last! - and on Friday I had Botox injections to relax some of the muscles in my legs, before using yesterday to recover. I want to write about both of these days in more detail but, because the next few are also pretty hectic, I won't have time. So, in order that I get back to regular posting, I've decided to offer a short poem each day for your perusal - in the form of letters addressed to my legs - to explain what I'd like to gain from this most recent round of injections. Hope you like.

I

Dear Legs,

Sometimes we don't get on that well.
You squeeze, I shriek, and any attempt
at a truce is almost literally like
getting blood from a stone -
because my muscles have turned to rock.

But I try to remember that 
I am my own Medusa,
though with little need for a mirror 
to show the damage I cause myself.
For all our fights, we are the same.

It seems, too, that flesh and bone are thicker even 
than the healing waters of my beloved hydro pool.
So we make the best of a spasmy situation,
turning tears into teaching, until poison
is palatable - and botulism bliss.

I send you to Coventry, tagging along
for the early autumnal drive,
sleepless though soon to be slumbering,
our mutual silence assured by an aura of anaesthesia
and the swish of a signed consent form.

Now you have our lethal nectar
trickling through your tendons,
will you, my weary wanderers,
call time on your tyranny?
I tiptoe in tentative hope.

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