A very young writer without much yet to say, asks his younger sister, a ballet dancer with a leg injury, "Why aren't you limping?"
She replies, "Limping doesn't help."
This phrase nags at the writer for more than a quarter century—tickles him, pokes him, annoys him, chafes him, confounds him because it will not go away. Maybe this phrase comes to him once a month, unbidden and from various angles.
Then one day, when he is 48 and sitting in an armchair on a Sunday morning, he thinks of it again.
And this time, he realizes that his sister's simple answer to a simple question is also a three-word poem, and all he has to do is transcribe it and credit its author.
"Limping Doesn't Help," by Piper Murray.
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