Amputation

Although your abbreviated life
has been cut away from me,
dead flesh extirpated from living,
I still feel your hands at night
as they roam the open field of my body,
foraging for lust and rest. I feel also
those other creatures—arms and legs
and some more secret animals who nest
in crooks and caves. My doctor says
this is called phantom limb. My nerves
still live and sense and fire even when
your living stimulus is gone. He says
there may always be some itch and pain,
my fields, though fallow, filled with grain.