The sick boy
1
Faint and foreign whispers
nailed on my hot and sticky temple
and my hands held the halves of my skull together.

All the while,
the sick boy was carted off to-day;
I saw them from the window,
and they told us that there was nothing we could do.

The southern stranger with a hair-wrap
gripped my wrist
as Northern Italy dripped with sweat.
I peeled his knuckles from my arm;
as I turned to the sick boy --
whose paper thin face perspired
in the ambulance.
Even my never-suntanned Irish skin
was olive-coloured when I placed
my slightly-moist palm over his forehead.

His lily-face dipped with sleep and his eyes shut.
I stepped out of the cream-coloured ambulance
and returned to the window,
where I curled up for an hour or more.

2
Everyone's eyes soaked up the sick boy,
but I,
so nonchalantly,
scraped up my last few ounces of energy
so that I could perk the corners of my mouth
ever so slightly.

It was some time later
when a warm yet dry hand
grasped my shoulder.
It was the miles of sunflowered Italian landscapes
that brought the colour to the sick boy's face,
and in return for the favor,
his face smiled for me.

1997