LISTEN TO THE WIND, THE WORLD, CRY! by Carol M. Anderson

Stained sunsuit

        crumpled khakis

               spotted

                     spattered

                              scarred for

                                       scared of

 the tissue they hold

           once luminous life breath

those blood blackened jeans

                                    are not on my son

 
I do not, thank God,

             have to cradle 

                        my daughter’s dying form today

 
Enough            too much

          to have held a daughter

                     as only machines and prayer

                                tethered her son to life

surgeon’s head shaking

bullet holed throat       esophagus        lung

patched to hold

or not

Enough,             too much

          to see blank stares

                    bleak bewildered questions

                               in a granddaughter’s eyes

as they funeral mass her friends

 

Whose child is this?

           This child who died?

Listen to the wind,        the world,       cry

.....This was mine, 

                       my child

                                  mine!