I dreamt she was a gymnast,
flung her pale limbs around
squeaking silver poles, performing
frantic and impressive flips
forty feet above an audience of five or six;
but they are just done with their practice,
tying their shoes on the gymnasium floor.
Now she vaults, lands hard, breathes hard.
Hands on hips and eyes cast down,
She paces, murmurs, tallies--
Cold-faced and coaching herself like the girls I used to see
when the Olympics were on TV.
She's always been so tiny. Not frail,
but stubborn and bruised,
like when we were six and flung our skinny limbs around
in shorts, unaware that there
could be shame in skin and bones,
or a need to conceal.
Now the nurses mistake her for his baby sister,
in her shorts and pigtails.
Blue vein-ghosts trail her pale legs
as the cold keeps the blood near her skin.
We are visitors, and her smiles and gestures are frantic,
but impressive:
A story of a number that will keep him alive and okay.
She was pacing, murmuring, tallying,
And there it finally was: Their number,
the call after the crash.
And there is no fear in his blood, she explains,
No shame in his skin and bones. She swears,
She'll bathe in it 'til her baby comes home.
