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| photo illustration by S. King |
Light reflecting off the yellow walls of the hospital room
Gives the scene a warm, nostalgic air it doesn't deserve.
On the bed, a boy cries and screams.
His limbs are spindly, his skin pale, his head overlarge,
Like a six-year-old foetus.
A white-capped nurse holds him down as he flails.
Doctors in white coats wait in the background,
Prepared to fix what's broken.
The boy's mother stands in the doorway
In a blue gingham housedress and brown cardigan.
Her hair is set in curls,
Her face in lines of perpetual worry.
She speaks to the gentleman in the hall,
A friend who has stopped by because.
"It happened again," she says
With perfunctory weariness.
The boy wails, the nurse shushes, the mother shrugs.
"But don't worry about us.
"We'll be all right."
