Percy Lee

Snatched up with his good left arm,  
I fluttered with fear.    
That he suffered was plain enough.    
But  "stroke" was beyond my grasp.    
   
To my child's mind, Percy Lee    
was a man of two halves,    
sewn straight down the middle    
by a cruel seamstress.    
I learned to leave my left eye unfocused    
for, on his left side, he was the grandfather    
any child would wish for.      
   
But he was not half a man,    
and the whole of him frightened me.    
As if formed by wax, the right side of his face    
appeared to have melted and fallen.    
Only Maude, who cared for him day after day,    
could catch the words that fell from his lips.    
   
As a small child, I was scared of many things    
and was damnably prone to crying.    
I had been crying that day when Percy Lee picked me up,    
for he could not stand to see me suffer.    
Misshapen as he was, his love for me was whole    
and perfectly formed.    
   
This was only explained to me years later.    
But not until I had learned what horrors    
Beautiful Creatures may carry inside them, ready to share in a clinch of two strong arms.