Upon Seeing the Crawling Girl with Polio
(Kolkata, India - 2013)
by Carol Lewis
My smog-scarred eyes
witness raw, be-sandaled palms
crawl, while crooked and callused
knees crack on broken bits of brick.
The dry road dust settles in;
your grave, seared eyes,
like coal before it’s mined,
bear a secret for me to cradle, a wish
within my power to unearth, with which to gift
you like a diamond,
before my humbled feet bear your darkness
away with me, and I pen it
in the polio-free country
where I belong.
My heart is scarred
as my ear leans closer,
feels you shiver, shiver…I
hear what’s been burrowed just
above your hollow belly
- your hope, swelling –
not for bread nor beauty but
for the right stolen by preventable malady;
the right to rise, independent
from the tainted dust, to balance,
to stand tall
and see on your precious feet
your hand-shoes
where they belong.