Polio

At five, I couldn’t walk.

Doctor’s diagnosed me with polio.

A pretty word, polio,

and that short for poliomyelitis,

still pretty though.

The Greeks were good at that;

some Romance languages good, too,

but less so, while the English is ugly:

Gray…bone.

In any event,

my mother laid hands on me and prayed,

and I was cured.

It doesn’t bother me that you don’t believe,

but why the look of disgust?


(July, 2013)