CLAUDIA EMERSON

Limb Factory
     ¹ The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me
     down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, ² And caused me to pass by them round
     about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. ³ And he
     said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
          —Ezekiel, Chapter 37

Despite
             the seeming
                                  singularity of the fetal
sonogram—
                  the wonder, or
                                          despair,
at a murky,
                 undeniable first,
                                            an avoided,
or longed-for,
                         windfall last—
                                              perhaps all
of it has been
                       like this
                                       mass production,
an assembly
                        line, the demand
                                                     a given,
though more,
                       in this place,
                                              in times of war:
the industry of it  
                              a study
                                          in loss,
and the argument
                              against it,
                                                the physics       
and engineering
                         of what
                                      moves, recovers,

resists, and follows
                             the body’s
                                              original order,

the flux and give
                           of a gathering
                                                    of dust

reproduced piecemeal—
                                      a room for arms,
                                                                 legs, someone’s
specialty
                  the knee,
                                    the foot, someone’s
the hand. And
                          perhaps such
                                              survival has always been
part conjure,
                       part clinical,
                                              the muscle twitch
of quickening
                         a fashioned thing,
                                                       interchangeable—
abject this remembrance,
                                         not begotten—
                                                                 made.