The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 11/15/07

"Shots"

Three nurses to hold him, this four-year-old who kicks me
crazy in the belly—six months pregnant but ha!
I've got the needle—the Measles-Mumps-Rubella.
Child, it stings like hell.

Listen to me, my little immunized enemy—
I'll take a bruise from you
before I'll see another kid like the one carried through the clinic doors
at the end of shift in his father's arms, seizing
seizing
The father's shirt is
black with sweat
is praying in Mexican

grand mal, I try to get a line in, Mother of God, intractable
Get him over to St. Luke's

but in the ambulance, he codes, and then, in the ER
with the furious swirl of personelle, crash cart rumbling up, curtains
snatched to shield him from the drive-bys and the drunks,
the boy expired.
Measles encephalitis.
He never got his shots.

So walk out, dark blonde, into the sun that will scald you red
and bleach your hair to tungsten burning, drive the dusty valley smacked with
irrigated fields. Bad counterfeit. Too green.

His young bones green, unripe, gronjo,
from the old Teutonic root—
Green. Untrained. Green. Freshly killed.
His young bones green and full of marrow.

Green at work there in the rows, hands stretched out to pick a
beefsteak tomato at the end of season when they strip the plants clean
whether the fruit is ripe or not.

—Belle Waring

The flow, the vivid and evocative language...

It just pops!

Maybe I'm more sensitive now that I've taken my poetry class...

But I really like this one!

I can really see this one happening...


Trot over to the Writer's forum, and have a look at my latest...

I'd appreciate your comments a lot!


:hi:

:hug:

And new C-Peg poems? Yay!

I have plenty of views over there, but not very many comments!

And comments are the lifeblood of any author!

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