uneven
A poem.
I'll check your heart rate now,
says the nurse, a bright-blue
mask on her face. she's worked
eighteen-hour days since March
& I've maybe slept that much
since then. I'm in the corner,
masked as well, watching
the nurse listen closely
as she presses the cold-steel
stethoscope to my daughter's chest.
I know what she hears--it's what
the last two doctors heard:
an uneven heartbeat,
arrhythmia,
like a bell
being rung by someone
trying to find their way home
in the unfamiliar dark
by sound & sound alone.
now it's weekly therapies,
pills that weigh her down,
scans by monstrous machines
built by a golden-age science
that can't explain why
a nine-year-old girl
has to stop to catch her breath
halfway up the stairs at home.
running shoes, the basketball,
the canoe behind the garage--
dust-shrouded now, a summer
abandoned. I can't sit
in the waiting room--
on the corner TV, talking heads
shout about opening schools.
hell, some mornings I can't
get her to open her eyes,
relax her fists as her body betrays
her & thoughts of death rattle
in the mind of a soul that hasn't
yet known a decade.
very good, very good,
coos the nurse--
a lie, but a gentle one
told in a cold room.
later, I'll get the story:
impossible to predict
but we're doing all we can.
I'm given bills
in folded envelopes.
then, we'll take the car south
on the empty highway, masks
in our laps. she'll choose
the radio station, a favorite song,
grip my hand as I, & not her,
start to cry again.