Among many other awesome activities, my friend Jackie talks to school kids about being an amputee. Variations on this question seem to be common.
Sometimes a leg dies.
Usually when that happens
It has company.
The rest of the body dies too.
But sometimes just a leg or arm or toe or finger
Gets ill, and starts to die
In such a way
That doctors stop the spread
Of something being dead.
By cutting off the part that’s still alive.
To carry on.
And no.
They didn’t let me keep the bones.
Tom Juniper Poetry 