The American Artificial Limb Company

The American Artificial Limb Company

My sister, my phantom limb, I reach for her
using her as the tool by which to remember her.

I wake at four in the morning with her fingers
on my throat. "Run now," she says, "On one leg
or three, it doesn't matter which." As the years pass

she becomes vestigial, an archaic organ
whose only purpose is to be removed. "Today, I saw

a legless boy in a wheelchair. two women with hooks
for hands, and a man playing basketball on two prosthetic legs.
Grief attaches itself to my legs

with bolts and screws; grief
crushes my ribs beneath its weight; grief creates
new joints, new elbows and knees; grief removes
my hands and replaces them with more grief. Drunk

with grief and its whiskey, I once told
a pretty white woman she looked exactly
like my sister, but I lied. I also lied when I said
I only told one pretty white woman she looked
exactly like my sister. In truth, I have lost track
of the number of pretty white women who
looked exactly like my sister. I must have said that
to a dozen, to dozens. And, in truth, yet again, I must
admit that none of the pretty white women
looked anything like my sister. I just wanted them

to rescue me. I was lonesome. On the highway, I was
the abandoned shoe that keens for its mate. When
I say she was my sister, I mean she was my sister.
You have to understand that white people invented

irony. I drive my car to the Veteran's Hospital and watch
them lug pieces of men in and out, in and out, and in
and out. Remember, the photographs only reveal half
of her beauty, the other half being her dirty mouth
because she cursed as Whitman might have cursed
if Whitman had decided to curse the world instead
of praising it: Fuck the world, fuck the inadequate body

that housed my sister, fuck the arms and legs, fuck the fire
that took her away, fuck her for leaving, fuck the shovel
and glove, fuck the sheer competence of fork and knife
and spoon, fuck memory, fuck the clock, fuck oxygen, fuck
the amputees and their loneliness, fuck the inadequate
body that houses me, fuck beauty, fuck the shoe, fuck
the song, fuck irony, fuck this war and that war, fuck
this war and that war, fuck this and fuck that, fuck this, fuck
that, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Sir," said the salesman, "Our artificial limbs come
in three different colors; white, black, and in-between.

Sherman Alexie..............from One Stick Song