Once on a clear night in the spring<\/p>\n
I stood in the nurse\u2019s station<\/p>\n
with the new boy they brought in,<\/p>\n
a black boy with arms as thin<\/p>\n
as reaching branches of the lilac<\/p>\n
bush and eyes wide as an empty pond.<\/p>\n
Blind. \u00a0Deaf. \u00a0I perched him<\/p>\n
on the counter, lifted a spoon<\/p>\n
of applesauce to his lips and watched<\/p>\n
as he sucked it in. \u00a0A dark form<\/p>\n
moved in the doorway and the prisoner<\/p>\n
came in. \u00a0Jim. \u00a0Part of a special<\/p>\n
release program. \u00a0As though throwing<\/p>\n
the retarded and the damaged together<\/p>\n
would somehow heal them both.<\/p>\n
There must have been something<\/p>\n
of the dad in him, because he lifted<\/p>\n
that sliver of child to his chest<\/p>\n
and cuddled him, as if this were<\/p>\n
the seed of his race, its scarred<\/p>\n
history, as if somehow a man\u2019s voice<\/p>\n
and the hardness of his hands<\/p>\n
could reach past soundless<\/p>\n
dusky shadows, slip into moving blood,<\/p>\n
fill an aching belly. \u00a0He jostled the boy<\/p>\n
as if he were a normal child and<\/p>\n
for a moment I thought there might<\/p>\n
be a reaction, some remnant of a smile<\/p>\n
on the boy\u2019s face. \u00a0But it was really me<\/p>\n
Jim had come to see, slipping out<\/p>\n
a joint, teasing, trying to pull me out<\/p>\n
into the star blown night.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was a fluke, the way he sucked<\/p>\n
the applesauce in. \u00a0After that no one<\/p>\n
could get him to eat, not even<\/p>\n
from a bottle, much less a spoon.<\/p>\n
They put a tube up his nose,<\/p>\n
lay him in a crib in Ward 1<\/p>\n
where the hopeless, cripples stayed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Published in:<\/p>\n
Verse Wisconsin\u00a0<\/em>(Summer 2010)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once on a clear night in the spring I stood in the nurse\u2019s station with the new boy they brought in, a black boy with arms as thin as reaching branches of the lilac bush and eyes wide as an empty pond. Blind. \u00a0Deaf. \u00a0I perched him on the counter, lifted a spoon of applesauce … <\/p>\n