That hour my birthdays point back to, whoever
saw me first
noticed
certain things weren’t right.
This isn’t the girl his mom asked for and
damn! would you look at
that foot.
I could not see ahead the
years of people staring down, then
glancing up to see if all of me
was off
or only that. And kids
at the pool calling it a funny fat foot, and
later on my young daughter
asking
if all daddies had one.
And a clever M.D. said I might have made
a living as someone’s field goal
kicker
if the chance for that weren’t
past. He knew what congenital meant,
but strangers saw it as
a fault,
a deformity meaning the
Lord must have been in a bad humor
whatever morning he
made me,
and wouldn’t change a thing years
later when a four-year-old, who’d seen
me bare-legged, prayed I’d grow
some toes.
Which thank you would be nice.
And then the boy who saw me and the foot naked in
the swimming pool shower and called out for
his mother
to come in and see it.
And there were surgeries then, and those strange
surgical shoes which were always
a curiosity
to kids I hung around with.
All grown up now and the foot old as me,
the shoes and their fittings still
aren’t grand
but I myself mostly am, thank you.
Afterword
The experiences mentioned in these lines are all memories of mine. They actually happened in my early life. For readers who do not know me, I am happy to report that this disability was nothing near devastating. An old high school friend once told me he thought I was determined to prove I could do anything anybody else did, despite “that foot of yours.” And indeed, I used this foot as a football player, a hiker, mountain climber, tennis player, golfer, bicycle rider, etc. As a Boy Scout I once hiked the 35 mile “Lincoln Trail” in Kentucky by myself in one long single day. Most groups take three days or maybe two. While the foot has had various surgeries, over ten of them, it has still managed to serve as best it could for now 89 years.
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You were never lagging behind. I remember our hike to Mount Le Conte. You were always in the lead. I was a young whipper snapper panting to catch my breath.