Clinics

by Michael Bachstein

When I am four a crippled hospital

Peels me out of my parents’ arms

To make me better.  I wring my mother’s neck

For safety, knowing this is not

What they said would happen, that they

Are as unnerved as I am to see

Their mangled only son stripped from their love

Into the cracking-plaster bowels

Of this place, into a row of endless cages

Where children no stronger than their parents’

Worst fears lie writhing, waiting for the legs

The doctors have promised.  I have made it

Perfectly clear ever since breakfast

That I want to stop there again on the long

Way back, at that same roadside place

Where I slurped up my hungry hot oats this morning

And they said we’d be sure to, but now

They just stand there growing smaller as some

White-headed woman with her glasses on a chain

Around her neck takes me down the long green

Hallway frowning, and they are still waving goodbye

As we turn the ugly corner and disappear, and what

If I never get my legs and they forget me?