ANOTHER WOUNDED 1940

A BLIND AND LEGLESS WOMAN IN LONDON IN 1940

I am wheeled
into the sunlight
(being blind
it is the sun
I feel not see)
and am placed on the grass.

A voice says:
I'll be back for you
later Grace;
if you need to pee
call out.

She is gone,
and I am left
to my darkness
and sunshine's warmth.

I reach down
and feel along my thighs
to where the leg stumps begin;
bandaged up
and feeling painful.

I touch the end
with my shaking fingers
wishing I had my legs again
and could dance
with Clive one more,
but he is dead
in War's hold.

I am here staring
into blackness,
hearing voices from afar,
and a slight breeze
fingering my hair.

Philip was good to me
at the dinner date,
patient and kind,
even when I was moody
and tired and sensed
others staring at me
in the restaurant as I sat
there propped up
in my chair
like some broken doll.

Excuse me,
a voice says to my right:
what happened to you?
How'd you lose your legs?

I turn to gaze at the place
of the voice,
female,
young sounding.

Caught in a bombing
in the Blitz,
I say.

Shame that;
lost my house
and my mum and dad
and I was out at work,
she says.

Sorry to hear that,
I say,
wondering who she is
and what she's doing here.

Why are you here?
I say.

She gets nearer to me:
got burnt when the jam factory
I worked in got bombed
and the fecking jam
and sugar sprayed on us;
some were killed,
but I survived,
she says.

How awful,
I say.

I feel tired,
and depressed,
and wish to heck
she'd go away.