I read about the men who maim themselves,
Who amputate fingers and toes and arms:
The man who practiced on pork shoulders and
Put, finally, the shotgun to his leg;
The man who crushed his leg, set it afire;
The multiple cases of men who lay 
Their legs across the railroad tracks and wait
As if the world has insufficient loss.
I remember two friends who lost both legs 
In cars, others who gave up toes and feet
To diabetes.  I want to write them 
Whole, bringing back the bones, though my father,
Each time I visit, reminds me my words
Are no different than bread he baked, the cakes 
He iced by hand, squeezing out the sweet script
Of birthday names.  He shows me, this trip,
The school bus full of old books and papers,
Tells me he’s driving them to Aspinwall
For dollars by the ton.  We stand, later,
In the leveled lot of the razed bakery.
He scuffs one mark for the workbench, one more
For the mixer, nods at my shoes and waits 
Where the dough would rise while I toe the earth
And tell him my tale of the wooden legs
On the child mummy unwrapped in Egypt, 
The carbon-dating which said those legs were
Centuries younger than her bones, someone
Opening the grave and fitting those legs,
Someone forming sized feet from reeds and mud.