Daily Times

No joy more idyllic than his child’s smile I retrieve drained from the obnoxious clinic wrap sheets of complex chemo cycles and tissue biopsies from spooky places to seek solace by this medieval fountain calm as Poseidon’s sleep Goldfishes jumping gaily confident of his trident. The child loves the goldfish’s tease his father conjures a bread lump; let’s tease them back.

The smile fades into Hawkeye; half a meter’s throw the child aims the magic in his eyes reflect cerulean tornadoes in the pond I yearn to join this little house party; must inquire the child’s malady wrought story. A tumor recurrence from failed remission but ignorance is bliss; the child knows not and must not.

It was getting late, the child too sensed, must make my way home so I bid farewell before twilight, when the sea sprites realize lateness. There’s something about cancer in land urchins that doesn’t age them grey, childhood mesmerizes even in end stage what bliss what peace; it dies younger than it is born. Those mystic pupils where black holes swirl, hair follicles died before even born If i describe a more peaceful family I would lie, disease cannot replace what is made by father and son; even a second’s smile no years of chemo can buy. These waters hold tears; the child couldn’t shed. Mr. Dahl, can we please use some of George’s marvelous medicine?

I see a caterpillar that won’t molt; a butterfly, a night crawler who never camped in dad’s backyard to discover his first firefly. The best medicine is not the ultimate healer; always. A moment of happiness borrowed from lively water-worlds is worth a lifetime bought from nasty man-made tonics.