Spare Parts

    The tin-nose man. Among the vivid memories.
    The tin-nose man comes to drag the garbage cans
    to the curb. I am a little kid. It's the thirties.
    The nose held with little hooks. He turns
    sideways, and through the gap between
    the nose and cheek, daylight shines.

    People carry diseases on the surfaces
    of their bodies. Goiters. Tumors pushing out
    here and there. Scrofulas. High blood pressure-- faces
    flushed. Infantile paralysis. Crippled children circling about
    in wheelchairs, on crutches..

    Nowadays, who sees such pathetic
    afflictions? We have vaccines, drugs, organ
    transplants, bypasses. My arteries, synthetic
    a material used in outdoor gear for sportsmen.
    (My legs quiver when I pass the store which sells
    that stuff.)

    They put things in our bodies--plastics, exotic
    alloys-- titanium, stainless steel. Refurbish
    squeaking joints, pocket in our chests electric
    prompters-- pacemakers, fibrillators. Unseat the anguish
    of our hearts with pumps (that cannot fall in love).

    Organs. Who knows whereof
    they came. From people. Monkeys
    baboons, pigs. All kinds of tref.

      A rabbi requires a transplant
      heart valve from a pig. Consults Talmud,
      Mishnah, Halacha.       They are silent

    As for the man with the nose of tin.
    Yes, still there are wars where a man could have
    his nose blown off. But now a new one can be contrived
    real as the old, with bone, cartilage, and skin.

    So, who are you, when inside your body are
    parts from other people, animals-- plastic
    and metals-- like from a junk shop

    and maybe for the brain-- a silicon chip?

    ...................................................................Israel Lewis

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