Losing Their Legs

They say that whales were pig-like creatures,

back in days of old.

And so I have to wonder,

what were the thoughts of that first pig-beast

that found itself so suddenly in among the waves,

alone, legless,

staring at it’s land-locked cousins.

Did it know it had escaped the frying pan,

the barbeque, the sausage egg mcmuffin

(but not the slaughter).

And if I lost my legs, suddenly

would I find a home in the ocean?

Becoming sleek and barnacle-encrusted,

huge and eerily grand.

Or better yet, what about all the veterans

who returned home from their foreign wars

wheelchair bound and crippled in this world,

Could they, already grizzled and far too wise,

grow smooth and hydrodynamic,

finally complete without their legs?

They say it was a gradual change, that primeval loss,

not a sharp shock of shrapnel,

But I still wonder about those ancient veterans of the land.