A Time to Dance(29)

            The hair on Jim’s hands is powdered white

            from the plaster of Paris

            he’s mixing with water

            to make a mold of my residual limb.


I can’t believe he’s taking so much time to learn

            about what I most love.

            I feel flattered—more than flattered—by his interest.

            I want to say how deeply

            his care and dedication touch me.

            Instead, all I do is sneeze from the dust Jim is stirring up.


Jim motions at a wall.

            “Got those in your honor, too.”

            Posters of three dancers, all

            one-legged.


“Let me introduce them to you, ma’am.” Jim points

            at a handsome man wearing a suit and shoes.

            “He’s an African-American tap dancer.

            They called him Peg Leg Bates. He danced with a wooden leg. Way back in the 1920s and ’30s.”

            Next, Jim shows me an Indian man named Nityananda,

            dancing a classical style similar to Bharatanatyam.

            Nityananda balances on one leg, his residual limb hidden

            beneath the graceful drapes of his white veshti,

            his upper body naked except for his golden dance jewels,

            his arms raised, palms together above his head,

            eyes closed.

            But it’s the third dancer

            off whom I can’t take my eyes:

            a dark-haired, round-faced Indian lady.

            “Sudha Chandran,” Jim says.

            “She danced your own beloved Bharatanatyam

            with a simple, inexpensive artificial limb

            created in India: the Jaipur foot.

            The prosthesis I saw on my first trip to India

            that inspired me to design artificial limbs.

            We’ll be making you a far more modern leg

            with greater flexibility and range of motion.”


I dream of my picture

            hanging next to Sudha Chandran’s on Jim’s wall.


As if he can read my mind, Jim says,

            “One day, kiddo, I’ll add your poster to my collection.”

            I love hearing the pride in his tone,

            love his certainty,

            love how he

            hears my unspoken words.





BEGGAR





Paati and I go to the Shiva temple near our home.

            She walks slower than usual.

            We pause in front of a small vacant lot

            so she can catch her breath.

            “Paati, are you feeling unwell?”

            “Just age catching up with me,” she says.


An old beggar, almost bent in two,

            shuffles out of a ragged tent in one corner of the lot.

            He holds out hands skinny as a chicken’s feet.