One sobbing 2-year old with burned hands.

One dislodged NG tube.

One baby’s blood on my shirt.

One young man obsessed with Mountain Dew.

One exploding gas line burns one house
and three people in it.

One rescue inhaler missing meant one heart stopped and one brain died, almost died, died to
the life that it knew, to the life his mother dreamed.
And now I stretch his stiff, sweaty limbs,
curling into knots
and watch his eyes for silent screams.

One smiling, unspeaking 16-year old, who
lives with a body that has turned on itself,
lives with her sister’s ex-boyfriend,
lives with a mass of knotted wig on her head, which her mother refuses to comb.

One breathing tube out. Finally.

One 5 year-old with the flu,
and a brain tumor,
just diagnosed,
inoperable,
and a mother who fears
the father who hates.
A thin sheet of pretense veils the room.

One boy who set afire a string on his shirt
and his shirt
and his arm
and his back
and his chest
I don’t go back to my mama’s, he says.
She throwed toys at me.

One boy with clay on his hands
a fresh scar dancing across his head
from the car that hit him
as he danced across the road.
His mother, tested for drugs, will not return.
His father, older, bearded, country, doting,
slices through plastic packaging
to open more clay, more crayons, more games and paint brushes.
Whatever he can give
to heal his boy
While you’re here, I’m going to go smoke,
he pleads.
I’ll be back, son, he says to the boy looking at solid food, meant for him,
for the first time in a week.
Pizza and grape juice,
of course.
Trembling fingers pluck thin strips of meat from each piece,
stretch out for the straw.
I roll the clay in my fingers and remind him:
Small bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Sip.
Repeat.
We watch the day end,
the pizza disappear,
the quiet hope of the night stop by this room
for just one moment.