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.

A question from E, aged 4.
If that’s how it worked, 

What would you look like?
Spaghetti for hair

Chocolate buttons for eyes

A chip for a nose

And sausagey thighs

Your corn kernel teeth

And your red pepper lips

Would smile as you shake

Your cantaloupe hips.

If we are what we eat

Then sheep should be green 

With wool just like grass

But that’s not what you’ve seen.

Sheep can make wool 

All fluffy and neat

Just like you can make hair:

From the food that we eat.

Ocean’s part of Earth

But Earth is mostly ocean.

So you tell me, kid.

In solidarity with all the parents and carers having to answer questions like this today.

It’s hard to believe, but

He wanted to make things better

Nobody wants a worse world

Even a terrorist

Even a man who kills himself

To kill so many others

Does not dream of a world

Where things are worse than now.

But he was hurt

So many times 

And lied to

So many times

Saw injustice

So many times 

That one day

He came to believe 

That blaming 

And punishing

And killing

And dying

Would make the world better.

It sounds ridiculous.

It sounds sad.

And I wish I could tell you

It sounded unusual.

Try to remember

No matter what happens

That hating people

And hurting people

Never makes the world better.

Sand is between the sea and the land. 

Strouse is between a house and the street.

 Spearth is the part between the space and the earth. 

Kneets are the things between knees and your feet. 

I was adding some compost and sand to the earth In my strouse. 

(I was planting potatoes and beets) 

When a pebble came flying at speed through the spearth 

And it hit me quite hard. Left a bruise on my kneets.

Floof is between the floor and the roof. 

Schoad is between the road and the school.

 Trie is between a lie and the truth

 And somebody fise is not wise nor a fool. 

I like being home reading books in my floof 

Or waiting for school on the schoad. You ask why? 

 Because I learn words that help tell you the truth 

And you’re pretty fise if you think I would trie. 

When you become a teenager,

Your body’s doing scary stuff

Like getting tall and changing shape.

You’d think that would be quite enough

But no, it’s also growing hair

In places you that might not guess

And just to make it more unfair

It makes your mood a big old mess.

For little kids, a rollercoaster

Might seem like a scary ride

But for a teenager, who knows?

Perhaps it’s how they feel inside.

If they are

Then we would be 

As alien to them.

And a little being

Far away

Is asking

A bigger being 

The same question

You just asked me.

Imagining 

What strange creatures

We must be.

And wandering

If we mean them harm,

Or wish them well.

The light goes out 

On the town.

When you switch it off

It leaves you

In the dark

And plays

In the street

Hangs out

In all night cafes

Hits the clubs

And dances 

All the night away.

Then crawls back 

Into your room

With the dawn.

Can you just imagine

How tiny they’d be

To all fit inside there?

They’d be too small to see!

The journalists, sportspeople, 

Actors musicians 

All crowded inside 

In such cramped up positions!

The truth is much stranger:

They’re not there at all!

Their voices come in 

Through a wire in the wall

Or from satellite signals

From way up in space

We can hear them quite clearly

From some other place.

Tiny radio people

Would make much more sense

But truth’s often stranger

Than any pretense.