A Broken Limb on the Family Tree

The stale air dries my lungs

As I approach the dreadful room.

Who is this stranger

Missing beneath the bandages,

Casts like vines

Stitches the veins of a leaf?

The swollen foot angled upward

Increasing circulation like a rushing brook.

Your arm is caught in the web of a sling,

Eyes hardly peaking through the swollen lids.

The young doctor struts in

A lion amidst his predators.

Instructing me to step aside,

I obey, and sink into the floral armchair

The cheerful material has little affect

On my heavy mind.

Inducing him with chemicals ,

Probing him with steel hardware,

The mysterious man grunts.

Scribbling symptoms in sloppy script,

The doctor glances at a nearby calendar:

Exactly three weeks since the accident.

Looking at me with clinical apathy

A disconnected soul.

He explains the lack of progress

Words streaming into my ears,

Like fireflies innocently floating to their captivity.

Tears boil beneath my quivering lids.

Why were you so foolish,

To make this immature mistake?

Don’t you know how much it hurts,

To see Dad, the looming oak tree,

Silent in the breeze.

Or Mom, the weeping flower,

Wilting beneath the oak tree’s shade.

And don’t forget your broken sister,

The apple plucked before her prime.

The visions of the turning car,

Flash like lightning daily.

I can’t forget the miserable scene,

Cannot help but wonder,

Why not me?

The guilt has piled up,

Like snow in heaps by the river bank.

I pray you make it through,

For I wouldn’t be the same again.

Big brother, with arm in a web,

And stitches like veins,

Come back to us.

To Me.