Thalidomide Grown Ups
1.
She can see the headline
flashing in black and white
across their eyes when they look her way:
Thalidomide Babies.
Let's face it, they still see her and all the rest that way,
even if she's been tall enough to look them in the eye for years,
and her glance as fierce as a samurai's.
They just can't imagine the sword.
No, they think flippers, big heads,
baby seals being bludgeoned to death,
pills opening up
and little torsos with buds
wriggling out.
2.
He's got pockets
in everything he wears
so that he can cross a parking lot in peace.
And he's proud of how he's worked
to get his hands to reach his hips.
When he has to push the buttons on the cash machine
he'll take them out
and hear the familiar gasps and whispers.
But for now he's slipped them into
the blessed privacy of pockets.
3.
The grands love the way the hand the doctors gave her
glides across a page when she reads.
The boy's even said he wants those E.T. fingers
when he grows up, which made everybody laugh,
but she gave him a little talking to
and now he understands.
Of course none of them turned out like her.
She saw to that.
For her, giving birth was like stepping
out of a dead husk into morning.
And the sickness before?
Well, it's a funny thing:
the first time she threw up
she saw her mother bathed in light,
and eating a piece of toast.
That's when she knew
it was her who could
put it right.
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