{"id":95190,"date":"2016-03-02T18:28:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T23:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=95190"},"modified":"2016-03-02T18:28:41","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T23:28:41","slug":"after-the-loss-of-a-limb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/","title":{"rendered":"After the Loss of a Limb"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_95192\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hand.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-95192\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-95192\" class=\"wp-image-95192 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hand.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hand.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hand-300x236.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-95192\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eug\u00e8ne-Louis Doyen, nineteenth century<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Elena Wilkinson\u2019s poem \u201cAfter the Loss of a Limb\u201d appeared in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/57\" target=\"_blank\">Spring 1974 issue<\/a>. Her contributor\u2019s note said only that she lived in New York City.\u00a0<\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After the family surgeon has severed my hand and wrist from the forearm,<br \/>And I have carefully washed the separated hand with the connected hand,<br \/>And done its fingernails, and put a drop of perfume at the pulse of the wrist,<br \/>And soothed the hand, and stroked it, and spoken to it<br \/>Until it understands everything, why the operation was necessary,<br \/>And I have kissed each finger before picking it up by the thumb<br \/>And packing it with colored tissue in a nice box,<br \/>And with some difficulty wrapped it and sent it away,<br \/>And when you receive the package and open the box and find<br \/>That I have sent you my hand, my wrist, and the first three inches of my forearm,<br \/>You must care for the fingernails, clean them and polish them,<br \/>Brood over them so they grow long and pretty,<br \/>You must massage the skin with cream to keep it soft, and perfume the wrist,<br \/>You must be considerate and make it feel it is a member of the family,<br \/>Taking no notice of whoever may watch as you wash or touch or speak to my hand,<br \/>And advise you to bury the thing, or use it as a paperweight or objet d\u2019art,<br \/>Or tell you to keep it out of the sight of the children,<br \/>Remembering you did say you were fond of my hand and wanted it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elena Wilkinson\u2019s poem \u201cAfter the Loss of a Limb\u201d appeared in our Spring 1974 issue. Her contributor\u2019s note said only that she lived in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":941,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[33,370,21373,21375,21374,2159,7221,165,21376,2158],"class_list":["post-95190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-archives","tag-back-issues","tag-elena-wilkinson","tag-hand","tag-hands","tag-issue-57","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-severed-limbs","tag-spring-1974"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poem: \u201cAfter the Loss of a Limb,\u201d Elena Wilkinson, 1974<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 2, 2016 \u2013 Elena Wilkinson\u2019s poem \u201cAfter the Loss of a Limb\u201d appeared in our Spring 1974 issue. Her contributor\u2019s note said only that she lived in New York\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"After the Loss of a Limb by Elena Wilkinson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 2, 2016 \u2013 Elena Wilkinson\u2019s poem \u201cAfter the Loss of a Limb\u201d appeared in our Spring 1974 issue. Her contributor\u2019s note said only that she lived in New York\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-02T23:28:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hand.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"471\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elena Wilkinson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elena Wilkinson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elena Wilkinson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3ad178d255ce6639007b891b5da9b082\"},\"headline\":\"After the Loss of a Limb\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-02T23:28:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/\"},\"wordCount\":277,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hand.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"archives\",\"back issues\",\"Elena Wilkinson\",\"hand\",\"hands\",\"issue 57\",\"poems\",\"poetry\",\"severed limbs\",\"Spring 1974\"],\"articleSection\":[\"From the Archive\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/\",\"name\":\"Poem: \u201cAfter the Loss of a Limb,\u201d Elena Wilkinson, 1974\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/02\/after-the-loss-of-a-limb\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hand.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-02T23:28:41+00:00\",\"description\":\"March 2, 2016 \u2013 Elena Wilkinson\u2019s poem \u201cAfter the Loss of a Limb\u201d appeared in our Spring 1974 issue. 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