Because if luck
could flick time
with a thumb like
a dime on a table
 
ringing heads (not
tails), it would be
my child’s helix
pinned to a board
 
then picked apart
by a lab coat, my
child hauled before
Asperger. Speak, boy,
 
& for god’s sake, say
something clever, I strain
towards my son’s
weird posture, his
 
crooked voice. Herr
doktor, I grab his
white sleeve, he can
name the stars, the chambers
 
of the heart. Do you see
his perfect mouth, eyes
alive as a badger? He is
not a burden, not a burden,
 
not a burden. Asperger
peers into his face,
& the child falters,
his words skipping
 
as a Victrola needle
on a recording of
Der Ring. The doctor
shrugs, shoves his glasses
 
up, writes something
in a folder. At Spiegelgrund
they caught pneumonia,
balloons of gas,
 
tigers by their toes,
eenie meanie miney mo,
eight hundred children
did not pass go.
 
In his folder it’s written
epilepsy too & a quarter
Jew. Asperger only
groomed his chosen few.

Sonia Greenfield

< BACK | NEXT >

TABLE OF CONTENTS