Apologies, You Survive

You’ve been dying since seven, when you were promised pneumonia

and received a head cold, back at school in the morning, the dread

acceptance of your midnight orison forgotten for markers and division.

And now you’ve added a decade and a half living alive,

your ribs have never been broken, head never cracked,

skin more scarred and skipping like a CD but whole. Terrible.

If I could make the world fair, I’d let you go home early, clock out now,

I’ve got it handled. But (as I’ve now told so many Children) I can’t make it fair.

Looking forward, you will continue to work and breathe, be a part of

organization and the carbon cycle and the why of the world.

As you, it’s all my fault. You have my deepest regrets.