Fable of Three Surgeons

Fable of Three Surgeons

Fable of Three Surgeons

One

from Saskatchewan
who knitted severed fingers

back on a piano-player
who, a month later,

tickled the ivories
at Carnegie Hall.

Two

stitched legs
back on a Seattle man

who then almost won
the New York marathon.

Three

lectured on
expertise picked up

in the great Lone Star State:
his amputee a cowboy 

on alcohol and cocaine
who spurred his horse

at the Santa Fé freight train –
flew through the middle of the air,

bounced off a nodding donkey,
fell into an oil well;

the surgeon knitted back
all that remained –

a horse’s ass and a Stetson hat;
his patient ruins pianos, can’t run;

but don’t picnic today
on the White House lawn.