Phantom pain.

The neighbor who farmed in earlier life
Knows it, and now his son, back home
Maimed from the latest war, half-cheerfully
Relating the ambush that left him one-handed.
His father's loss was two fingers and thumb
Pulped when the post-hole digger dropped
Into the slot. The shock of gone reached
His brain even before pain did, he says,
Massaging where the invisible fingers curl up
In their agony. The stump his son wears with
Or without prosthesis, extends itself past arm's
Length in its brokenness towards seizures
Of unreachable relief. He and his father
Touch each other. At the right hand of God,
Can the Son, remembering being taken down
Again from the cross, and then the final
Severance from Man, feel phantom pain?