A Hand Up (Tweaked, thx Alan), Sonnet Options

[Mary Boren]

I hesitate to post another poem with two still on the board, but since things are kinda slow I hope it will be OK to start workshopping this one while those slide on down. On this day of Thanksgiving, I'm counting my blessings (including new friends here at MM), and near the top of the page is ...

A Hand Up

A cattle trailer stops, my scooter swerves ...
but not enough. Within a blink, my wrist
is shattered, zapping tendons, muscles, nerves
and vital ligaments. They're sorely missed.

A hundred years ago, there would have been
two choices: cut it off or let it dangle,
a shriveled, lifeless paw. Now, skillful men
and women have the know-how to untangle
a royal mess. Through microsurgery,
the bones are reconstructed. Months and days
of exercise, massage and therapy
work wonders, proving optimism pays.

They gave a hand. I'll raise it as a sign
of readiness to serve. It's God's, not mine.

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Original L4
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and ligaments. They would be sorely missed.

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Mary, Amazing how fast and far surgery has come, I had a cyst removed from my right leg at the age of nine, it took nine hours on the table, nine days in the hospital and nine weeks in a cast( actually three casts-I was a nine year old boy who couldn't be kept out of the water or out of trees even with a cast), but just in 06 I had a biopsy of my lungs that took three hours, no stitches, and only a week and a half to recover five of those in the hospital. I can still see the scar on my leg, but i can't see anything but a faint line on my side were they did the two incisions.
I was told that a lung transplant would leave the same sort of faint lines... and they replace knees, and hips and hearts how wonderful is that?!! great subject for a poem.

Steve