Outside the doctor’s office, my son lays curled
on the floorboards of my van,
red and constricted as a crab,
the windows of the car absorbing sunlight
as though we lay inside a crystal, sweat
and tears at his hairline, the ravine of curls
gathered to his shoulders like a bouquet.
Brushing aside his hair, I trace the rash on his shoulder,
colorless, the shape of Kansas, raised bumps
in formation like a cornfield. Slugs of snot stream
from his nostrils as he screams, Fix it.
Fix my shoulder. No doctor!
The humidity in the car crushes our bodies
like a pressure cooker, and I imagine bringing him
inside the office, beneath my arm like a football,
the drum of his ribcage in my elbow,
the percussion of his screams in the tidy waiting area,
the jungle gym of primary colors, Highlights Magazines
stacked on the side tables, and our presence in the office
like a hurricane. His sobs would dampen my T shirt,
my hands to his back, the thermal landscape
of his scalp, clutching him to me in my desire
to fix – fix the patch on his shoulder raised like Braille,
fix the nights he must spend at his father’s,
the way he curls into me when he comes home
every week, his wet mouth to my shoulder,
just as he would in the doctor’s office,
my arms around his torso as though holding us together
against detonation, the way I would fix everything
that hurt him, if I could.
But I cannot: so I sink to the floorboards
over his body, its tremulous form, kneeled
as though praying, his feet curled like a heart,
my palm to his spine, to absorb his distress.
I remind myself of better days,
as I hold space for his wails
on the floor of the van that blisters, swells with heat
like a ventricle. We rock together, the breeze
through the cracked door lapping away his agitation,
his confusion slowing as the first hiccup
of rain speckles my windshield,
spattering on the roof of the car
like a tin can, my son’s wide fox eyes rising
in wonder, mouth open, the tears under his eyes gleaming,
stilled, the heat within the van broken like a spell.