It doesn't matter whose child it is....

There were wires everywhere and the hum of soft shoes padding up and down the halls almost drove me mad. How could they be so quiet when my world was exploding? How could my heart pound louder than every machine they had plugged in, louder than the canned voice calling Dr. Kildare on the loud speaker? How could they not crumple, fall to their knees with me...and know....

Long before he stabilized they told me in a foreign antiseptic language..."we've done all we can do"... and then they scattered, pigeons on a highway dodging five o'clock traffic.

And then he lived.

They came back to pack him up, uninsured, in my little red car. Naked and broken. Nobody wished us well on the way out the door. They didn't call in the morning to check on him.

This time they kept him.

And for 72 hours someone will watch over my child. With the cheese curl toes. The homemade tattoo on his ankle. The blonde hair with the slightest red sunset. For 72 hours he will be mad, but he'll breathe.

And I'll cry,
But I'll sleep...

Because he'll be safe....