How the tortoise lost his shell

How The Tortoise Lost His Shell.

I was born the ordinary way,
pink, shiny, utterly defenseless,
and without a shell.
But how quickly I learned the error of my ways.
In a world of bigger, faster, surer-footed people
who knew all the rules,
I grew my own shell,
but not across my back,
across my face.
A shell that says, you can't hurt me.
and even if hurts inside,
outside you'll never see.
"Dumb insolence" my father called it.

With fingers crossed behind my back
I go through life behind my armored face.
And by and large it seems to work,
until one day a boulder hit me from the blue,
a boulder called incurable disease
that could have hit on anyone.
It could have hit on him, or her, or even you.
But this one fell on my charmed life.
"Much good may all your armour do," the boulder said ,
"Rough justice as it is I fall exactly where I choose.
And I shall very quickly knock the nonsense out of you."

And so it proves.

Today I caught the bus to Waitrose.
Not for any special reason,
Just to do the ordinary kind of shopping
ordinary Waitrose people do.
Sitting on the bus across from me
a very ordinary bonny baby
waves his arms and as he waves and shakes
my extraordinary body starts shaking too.

I struggle to control my waving arm, to find some place
to rest it, out of every mother's view.
All I want, all I am asking, is to pass unnoticed
like you, or you, or even you.
How strange - this baby waves to call attention to himself
while I am struggling not to do.
Out of the blue an unwanted tear forms in my eye -
if only I could choose.