Читать книгу The Glass Constellation - Arthur Sze - Страница 69

The doctor flicks on a light,

puts up the X-rays of our three-day-old child,

and diagnoses a shunt between

left and right ventricle,

claims an erratic electrocardiogram test

confirms his findings. Your child,

he says, may live three to six weeks unless

surgery is performed.

Two days later, a pediatric cardiologist

looks at the same X-rays and EKG test,

pronounces them normal,

and listens with disinterest to the murmur.

I think, then, of the birth:

mother and child in a cesarean,

the rush of blood in the umbilical cord

is a river pulsating with light.

And, as water rippling in a pond

ricochets off rocks, the network of

feelings between father and mother

and child is an ever-shifting web.

It is nothing on your doctor’s X-ray

scanner; but, like minerals lit up

under a black light, it is an iridescent

red and green and indigo.