Sister Lou Ella Hickman

NOT AN ARM OR LEG

Listen to Audio Version read by Jill Khoury.

though not an arm or leg missing via an accident
or feet dissolving into green decay
then like a dead branch pruned
it was still a loss
which brain side i don't remember
and that was the problem years ago
called high school math
where equations would never tally
in the memory column…
became constant failure–
a wheelchair i couldn't fold up
lift into the trunk of a car
then park with a blue tag labeled handicap

Sister Lou Ella Hickman is a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. She was an all level teacher and a librarian. Presently she is a freelance writer. Her poems and articles have been published in numerous magazines as well as a poem in After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo. Her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, was released in the fall.