For a deaf, dumb and blind boy to master a pinball game

is nowhere near the effort it took for a young girl

in the same circumstances to learn language from scratch.

Not only did she become a prolific author, an activist

and a disability rights advocate (*the three A’s),

but also earned a degree from Radcliffe College as well.

But her mastery of her surroundings did not stop there.

She learned to hit a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball,

simply through a sense of air distribution, fast hands,

and the smell of horsehide. Not powerful, but consistent.

And her ability to drive a small car, slowly, based on the feel

of the wheels on the road, was considered legendary.

No one was hurt in the learning, but there were close calls.

She travelled to thirty-five countries in ten years’ time,

and swam the English Channel under cover of darkness.

As a socialist, she invented a robot she named Eugene Debs.

She is now depicted on the Alabama state quarter.

She invented bitcoin based solely on astral projection.

But in her vain attempts at pinball, she always tilted the machine.