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"Car Doors"
The large side door on my minivan is white steel. It's made to remove fingers but not with the precision of a scalpel.
Its blunt edge is made to crush. The tip gone, not enough tissue recovered. At the knuckle, blood vessels too narrow to reattach. Bone splintered at the base.
It's too heavy to close from inside. And outside, only David is strong enough, opening wider then leaning his 10-year-old weight as he pulls.
I usually close it for them, standing like a hotel doorman while they climb in dragging backpacks, piano music, ballet bags. Fighting
over who sits next to the door. I look at their fingers clutching homework, and I see them bleeding on the van floor. David's long musician fingers.
Allie's and Samantha's curved gracefully as if in dance. James's still holding a football or paintbrush. Luke's baby fingers gone.
I see them learning to play piano with a prosthesis. Slipping an engagement ring over a nailless stump. Shaking hands at a job interview left-handed.
I hear them screaming. The screams of birth, exit from the tight safety of the womb into cruel light. Where mother is just another careless stranger.
So I take the heavy door, warning everyone back. Hold the cold handle tightly. Swing it shut.
—Carol A. Losi
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