No one wants to talk about the sick child,
corrugated sadness, apologies baited with fear
the mouse-trap faces of those with healthy kids, shut.
Nobody wants to stand too close to disease,
the thieving rat reaches into pockets,
through the body’s bars, swipes
skin-lush, flown-open dreams.
Stuck in binocular vision, I watch my child teeter
towards the ground. I should move, sit on her end
of the see-saw, leave the others
up in the air.
[…] Oak, The Heart’s Oratorio to read and speak to her Narrative Medicine class. I read my poem Teeter Totter, which the class had read before, and we had a discussion about my intent and feelings of the poem […]