Francisco de Goya, Sera lo Mismo (The Same), around 1810

She tunes her guitar for Landstuhl
where she will sit on beds and sing
ballads from when Romany
roamed Spain
…
A prosthetic hand calibrates perfectly
the steam of a glass
or how to stroke a face
is this how far we have come
to make love easy
Ghost limbs go into spasm in the night
You come back from war with the body you have
…
What you can’t bear
carry endure lift
you’ll have to drag
it’ll come with you the ghostlimb
the shadow    blind
echo of your body spectre of your soul
…
Let’s not talk yet of making love
nor of ingenious devises
replacing touch
And this is not theoretical:
A poem with calipers to hold a heart
so it will want to go on beating.

– Calibrations, Adrienne Rich