​Les Wicks (Australia)

​Emily Takes Off 
​
The surgeons wanted to cut them out
but the girl had other ideas, albeit
half-formed like those lumps on her shoulder blades.
Scans were inconclusive but the medical profession
poked-prodded to a point where
bruises blossomed across her back.
There were suggestions surgery
could leave a tattoo of suffering
across her adult life…
all within acceptable boundaries
drawn by those without affliction.
 
As the skin began to split around
the urgencies on her scapulae
doctors sought orders from the court.
Her parents took the family on an extended holiday.
Process servers fretted about the vacated home but
all the neighbours refused to answer questions --
common good, common purpose.
 
Emily’s wings required adaptation
but she thrived above the clods of debate, that
aggregate of rules, those
endless line markers at their bitumen. 
 
Her party-dress of clouds now skims the globe.