A Petit Mal

It’s Happening

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) 

T.S. Eliot

The medical clinical procedure by which an illness is diagnosed will not be presented here. Not  really. Really: the disruptive experience of it. Not personal illness but illness of other, illness of  child. Do not stop reading for fear this will be sad. It will not. Not the entire way through. Not  longer than the duration of moment, of event. Sad because of child, and even not being parent,  sadness wrought by ill child is experienced vividly, is readily accessible, in adult form. Even  when not experienced, disruptively, as specific sequence that happens in own singular story of  life. Even when read.

Eventually, I will make you happy. But it will be a process. A procedure, but not a medical  clinical one, not even, entirely, a holistic one, because holistic can mean complete, and procedure  here will not be complete. Here, procedure will mean progression, as in on-going, beyond the  bounds of material book.  

Holistic may also mean, can also mean whole, as in sound. Process will not be sound in the way  completion is sound, is circular, is whole. Gradually, increasingly, we will name procedure  together, procedure I will present here for you. We will get there. Please read. Whatever it is, we  will name it together. The process of sad to happy to sad to happy is so important. Because  nothing need change outside. The coffee, so long as already good, can continue to be same good  coffee. Good coffee waiting for you to drink it. Here, drink, warm coffee waiting warmly in your  hands.

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The event, though. The event is important. The event that marks an external change, a change that extends inside, within the bounds of material skin. The event, the fulcrum about which the  story pivots, the moment that launches sequence, this specific sequence of story of life.  

I am able to name a single event. I am. The single event of playing soccer with boy and all of a  sudden ball is mine without slide-tackling boy, and I hear from behind boy say, it’s happening.  Boy clutches net, net which moves with him, and he moves from side to side with net, net which  moves with him. I hold boy by waist even though swaying is slight and look at boy while I kneel  on ground so that I can see with entire eyes entire face of boy at same height and boy is laughing  hard, wild, when he says, it stopped. Boy runs to take ball from me because boy is fine. Back to  fine. Return to fine. As in new precipice has opened along the course of this boy is fine.  

The event, the moment, the experience: occurrence fused with apprehension of fear. Fear  because knowledge. Knowledge of mother, of human mother, but also animal, animal parent.  Something is wrong. The event, pinned: the incident. But, the what within, the how within, the  why, not known.  

The event, the moment, the instant of decision of hospital. Of packing to go and awareness of  stay. Of the coming days inside hospital. Days to come, preemptively perceived—

In an instant there is time.

The madwoman in the house. Socks, underwear, chargers. Books, I pack two. Two new books  because I knew. Now, when I write, I can confirm, can remember how meticulous, how  painstaking, I knew. Of the days to come, I knew.  

But also, less exact: the sensation of urgency of hospital unattached to dread of immediate risk to  life. Rather, allied with proximate emergence of unnamed condition to life, to boy’s life, to our  family life. Because of this detection, timid awareness of eventual survive, I am able to play  music in car, to drive. Timid awareness, remote from the active knowledge of active, urgent, knowing. Awareness that is slight, voiceless, a sigh behind the structure of words. Faint

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awareness, thought that though unformed, still informs, guides, helps maneuver the material  movement of muscle, of bone, of being, who, within skin, is able to function—able to pick up  and go.

Vs.

In ER, we are seen by French doctor, which is unusual and relevant because doctor asks boy if he  likes any French soccer teams. Boy is wearing Italian soccer jersey.  

Yes, Paris Saint-Germain, boy says.  

Ah, doctor says, you like PSG. And you also like Juventus, huh?

Boy is wearing soccer jersey with the number and name of Juan Guillermo Cuadrado, a well known Colombian striker who plays for Juventus, a team from Italian city of Turin.  

Yes.  

French doctor says, is Cuadrado still alive.  

The French doctor is making a dark joke: is Cuadrado still alive. This is a question that is a joke.  A question asked because a Colombian soccer player was murdered nearly thirty years ago as  gruesome, ghastly punishment after he scored a self-goal in a world cup. The 1994 Italian World  Cup. My husband, boy, I, Colombian. A fact we had already told the doctor so.  

All this important because boy laughs, but the joke, the question, is not funny. The doctor’s joke  is not funny. Not even bad funny. Perhaps only uncomfortable funny, only uncanny ER  inappropriate funny, perhaps adult offensive funny. But boy laughs, boy who does not, I am  certain, recognize joke. Boy laughs a lot.  

My voice: it’s happening.

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And he, Emergency Room pediatric doctor who recognizes he should not have said what he just  said knows, too, that “it” is happening. Doctor orders CT Scan.  

Vs.

The power by which CT Scan is ordered. The years of school. The decades. Position earned via  disproportionate time on foot. Other children in other ER rooms. Other bad jokes. Other silences.  Other bursts of laughter.  

Give this child scan, this, not that. Boy laughs loud: laughs a laugh that is off. Silence does not  equal scan.

Vs.

The CT Scan is clear. No, not clear. It is “unremarkable.” Medically, clinically, unremarkable is  what bedside prayers are made of. Unremarkable boy under the unquiet, disquiet whir of CT  Scan. What’s more, the report goes—

“The globes and orbits appear within normal limits.”

Normal globes, normal orbits, normal limits within boundaries of boy. An incidental finding:  scan reveals empty sella turcica. The doctors try to explain.1 An extra molar. A difference in eye  color. Discolored nipples. No, they don’t mention nipples. I mention it to myself inside my head to try to comprehend incidental in terms of body. My high-school best-friend’s incidentally  humungous nipples. Incidental is not what bedside prayers are made of. It is vague. Why  mention it. Incidentally your boy, the boy in ER, has empty sella in brain. Should the sella be  half-empty, doctor. Or, rather, half-full. Perhaps it is better, always, to aim for fully full.  

I go online. Doctors insist, do not go online. Online, I learn. Reputable websites belonging to  reputable hospitals. I avoid forums, incidentally, at all cost. An empty sella refers to a cavity, the  sella turcica, that is actually full of cerebrospinal fluid in base of skull. In Latin, sella turcica

1 They are bad at explaining, I find.

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means Turkish seat. The sella a seat for the pituitary gland, headquarters of hormone production.  Online it says that this is what doctors think, what doctors consider, imagine, believe.  

An online search for Turkish seat yields billions of images of ultra-low rectangular loveseats  covered in mostly red fabrics. Another billion images of seats in Turkish Airlines. Nothing  summons cavity.  

Who names the lesser parts of body. A Turkish seat buried within brain of boy. Visible by  lamplight of CT Scan. Incidental, but not unremarkably so.  

Vs.

We are admitted.

Vs.

Two new books inside the parked car.  

Vs.

I am familiar with hospital because of recently. A friend who is a recent friend has a baby,  baby Anaya, recently diagnosed with cancer. With stage four neuroblastoma. Baby is  eighteen months when diagnosed. Cancer is in brain, in abdomen, in marrow of her bones.  Anaya whose name so close to mine. Whose name recalls place in paternal grandparent’s  native land of Lebanon. Place where grandparents are, incidentally, when diagnosis is  received by them via call.

My friend terms hospital The Terminal because being there is like being at airport,  eternally, with baby. Entertaining while waiting for something other to happen, to arrive, to  land upon. For example: insertion of substance. For example: analysis of change of rate of  heart, composition of blood, increase of temperature, result of exam delivered by physician

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on call, person with decades of school, proven to be good at withstanding hours of thinking  while standing up.  

There is really good coffee on ground floor. A café that makes Starbucks lattes. There,  beyond unnamed reality of medical, clinical truth, lives the day-to-day. The unremarkable  day-to-day. Different from truth of what may come, of what may land upon, of what’s to  arrive, but is not yet come. Good coffee a stated fact, substance inserted, absolute: Grande  Latte in your hand. Black and white truth that requires no physical scan.  

Vs.

One day before soccer-net-clutching-laughing-boy-hospital-dash-out-front-door, I take boy  to pediatrician.  

I say, boy says he feels, sometimes, like he is going to fall. Boy laughs, leans back. But boy does  not fall. I noticed it yesterday, two times yesterday, for the first time. Can we test boy’s blood.  

Ok, pediatrician says. Anything else.

No. No fever, no boogers, no pain in any place. Eating, pooping, sleeping I think fine. Only the  episodes. The feeling boy has that he will fall.

I’ll check ear.  

Ear. Pulse. Pressure. Bloodwork. All fine.  

Vertigo, I say.  

Maybe. But usually vertigo comes with near or actual fall.  

Shall I go to hospital. Insist on scan.

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No, wait.  

Ok.  

Fridays are bad at ER. If it happens again, then go. You must insist on scan.  Why.  

They do not like to give kids scan.  

Ok.

On car ride home, pediatrician calls.  

You know, she says. Maybe it is vertigo. Go to pharmacy, get boy a dose of Dramamine. Dramamine, I say.  

Yes, Dramamine. Let’s rule this out.  

Vs.

The hospital coffee shop that somehow is and is not Starbucks is closed on Sunday, which is  my first morning waking up in hospital. So, I am sent to other coffee vendor in hospital that  is open but has bad coffee. Such is what I mean. What I mean: what I try to mean—

…in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair! But, in the lamplight. But.

Boy, of course, still upstairs. Still asleep. Still hooked up by twenty-four very thin color  cables to EEG.

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Vs.

Electroencephalogram. The Mayo Clinic website tells us—

“An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test that detects electrical activity in your brain using  small, metal discs (electrodes) attached to your scalp. Your brain cells communicate via  electrical impulses and are active all the time, even when you’re asleep. This activity shows  up as wavy lines on an EEG recording. An EEG is one of the main diagnostic tests for  epilepsy. An EEG can also play a role in diagnosing other brain disorders.”

Incidentally, “epilepsy” is not a friendly word.  

Vs.

I am not sad because boy is getting EEG. I am grateful he is granted EEG. The bed/couch  parent hospital bed was/is fine. I read a lot of pages from one book. This book is pretty  good, maybe even unmodifier/unmodified good. But the coffee is bad, and I am not awake.  Not like I know from knowing, knowing of parent, of animal parent, knowing of feeling of  past good coffees imbibed, that I want to be, ought to be, awake. This annoys me.  

I am annoyed when husband calls and asks about boy. I say boy is fine. I ask husband to  come quick and bring good coffee quick. I do not say this nice. This makes husband think  boy is not fine. I see myself not rising to the occasion. But seeing the not rising does not  make me rise. I cannot rise because I am not awake. Because I am not good. Bad like bad  coffee. Hospital coffee served, not drunken. Not risen, not rose.  

Boy is fine, I say. Please come soon. Please bring good coffee.

Words spoken on first morning at hospital. It makes no sense. I am impatient. I am  annoyed. I do not feel sad. I am annoyed: I hold on to the day-to-day. Annoyance of

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husband, of my one single husband, husband so singularly named, man who answers to  singular compound name of Nelson David. I do not want to be disturbed.  

This is important. This day-to-day practicable, operative truth of what keeps life good, of  how. What, how, why. The answer is similar, the answer is same.  

Vs.

Because EEG is clear, we need MRI. Of the brain and of the spine. Boy will need general  anesthesia to lie supine.  

Vs.

To be clear, EEG is clear-clear. As in not incidental empty fuck shit fuck Turkish seat sella medical fuckface about-face unremarkable finding.  

Did episodes happen while on EEG.

Yes, doctor, three. My boy pressed the red trigger episode button three times, one trigger for  each of the times—

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Each to each.

Vs.

Boy has eight episodes, eight happenings, eight laughing wavering moments of imbalance on each of Saturday and of Sunday. On Monday morning we wake and it is time for MRI.  The nurse wakes me first. I ask the time. I ask if the coffee shop that is really Starbucks is  open. She says yes. I ask if we can wait until I get one to wake my son and take him to MRI.  She says yes. She does not laugh. She responds. When I come back with good coffee she  asks, ready.

Ready, I say. A series with eight episodes.

Walls in MRI room painted bright, an underwater perky fish scene. Look at cool walls, I tell  boy. Boy agrees they are cool. They are bright.  

The MRI doctor is so very silly. He asks boy about what boy likes.  

Messi, boy says.  

Messi, or is it soccer that you like, doctor asks.  

Insertion of substance. Boy with conclusively, instantaneously closed eyes. More good  coffee still to drink held by my hand. Grandes are grand. Sequence of livable steps. It is fun  to get an MRI.

Vs.

The night before MRI, Sunday, I read about epilepsy on The Epilepsy Foundation’s website.  It is hard to read, as in academically difficult, but interesting. Focal seizures originate in one  specific part of the brain, generalized seizures mean entire electrical cerebral organ is off.  Unknown next to seizures means of origin, of location unknown. As in indefinite source of

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electric impulse within landscape of brain. The why in all types, the reason beneath,  behind, generally, widely, occult.  

Sometimes seizures make the person unaware of the seizure. Sometime seizures make the  person loose motor skills. Absence seizures are when the person leaves then comes back,  as in leaves the actual world with mind but not body and is not aware of the leaving and  then the coming back. Like a movie on pause. It does not know it is on pause.  

Tonic-clonics are when the person convulses, on the floor, stiffens, turns blue, like in a  movie. In the past, tonic-clonic seizures were called “grand mal seizures” and focal seizures  were called “petit mal seizures.” But not anymore. Not by The Epilepsy Foundation’s chart.  Not since seizures were renamed in 2017. By a real-world organization named  International League Against Epilepsy. A name that brings comic book hero  conglomerations to mind.  

Reading about seizures is interesting. New words, new uses of old words. “Onset” is  brilliant in its simplicity, in its punch. An emotional thought that originates within my right  frontal lobe, where neurons finesse the emotional day-to-day living of life.  

Vs.

The night before MRI, Sunday, I write a poem about Mother’s Day and not getting gifts from  husband, among whose practiced male-female rituals of enamor is not included special day  celebrating of giving of gifts. I am lying down next to boy in narrow bed with wheels and  poem comes, and I know it is an old poem that has just arrived. And that it will not come  again. And that there is some humor in it coming now. I keep saying humor. I do.

That there is some humor. In it arriving into. Landing upon. An onset of complaints of  Mother’s Day spoils. I sense, too, the pathos. As in bleak, pathetic, pathètique. Perhaps my  laughter, like sudden seizure or sudden poem, comes abrupt, or not at all. The poem  belongs to a book I am writing called Mammal. All the poems in it numbered like this—

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“Mammal Thirty-One”

I tell the man

Who is my husband  

To prepare a gift to bring  

It will be the Day of the Mother Role of father man husband

Male to provide Box  

For me to open

And love

On this Day

Because I am Reasonable

I tell him specific small  

Thing to gift

A token

And how to go

But he does not go

He says he thought of something better But he does not did not

Go  

Again

Am I sad

Am I literally sad

Am I sad poem sad  

Am I proven right sad

Am I statistical lack sad

Am I tired of bipartisan role of Mother  Sad

Mother’s Day w/o box  

Without breakfast on tray

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Without plastic drugstore balloon

Without single CVS rose unthorned  

Without picture to prove

To post to prove

Again

Do I care  

Do I want to care

Do I make myself care

And if so

Can I make it stop

Can I forgo

And if not  

Can I go outside

Can I get myself my box  

Vs.

The night before MRI, Sunday, I finish reading the first of the two books I brought, Lily  Hoang’s A Bestiary. She writes about day-to-day, also things she learned from watching TV  in the real world of her life—

“I learn the difference between Oriental and Asian in middle school. No one in my family  teaches me. The people in my family don’t care about political correctness or preferred  nomenclature. Watching The Real World on MTV, Pam explains that things are Oriental— e.g. vases and rugs, food—whereas people are Asian. To say a person is Oriental makes  them into an object.

I internalize this as fact.”

Hoang also writes about jade bangles, the tighter a bangle is around wrist, the more  valuable the wrist. The woman attached to wrist. About ways to get a small jade bangle

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onto wrist. Soap, oil, pain, will. The small green bangle, remarkable because of the fist’s  tacit contortion. But also, remarkable in its ability to make the hand seem gentler, softer.  Oh, I know the implications, the politics are all wrong, but also, I immediately know I will  one day be on Canal Street pursuing impossible cold green jade for my improbably large  hands. Not because I dislike my handspan but because onset of bangle so clear-cut in its  sacrifice.

It feels good to finish book in real world. To read book and to finish. To comprehend book.  To recognize life may always be good, because of book. To close book like an answer to  which the question is book.  

Vs.

The night before MRI, Sunday, my husband, Nelson David, calls. He is not well. He wants to  talk. There is an underlying what, an undercurrent of want. It is my turn to be well. Don’t  ask those questions, I say. They are not good questions. It cannot be us, cannot be our fault.  We must wait for MRI, then we will know. But, let’s think of this as condition, a condition  we make part of life, of our good life.  

I am the opposite of annoyed. Drawn toward, drawn by—

In a minute there is time.

Vs.

Two weeks before hospital. Before madwoman dash to hospital with boy who says he feels  he may fall.  

Two weeks before hospital, I travel to New Jersey to visit friend who gave hospital “The  Terminal” name. Friend and her baby Anaya. In New Jersey for radiation treatment.  Radiation for stubborn cancer in electrical baby brain.

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New Jersey is not that bad.

What is bad about New Jersey is the lack of suitable density. All the highways make things  far. Make things same. And when you get to where you are going there’s a big place to park,  an ugly walk to walk. And where you are looks the same as from whence you came. So you  wonder if you were anywhere, went anywhere, are anywhere. Can possibly go anywhere,  ever, at all. This process, abstracted from immediate reality of place, makes place  interesting. Interesting thoughts of mind make place interesting as a temporary location of  life.  

I am glad to visit New Jersey. New Jersey is not that bad.

I am glad I see my friend in New Jersey, and I am glad to confirm she is in place that is not  too bad. Anaya is doing so well. She is always happy, always, every day, naps, eats, plays.  Friend and I have very good coffee. Marvel at the packed aisles, at the rows, at the corridors  of Whole Foods. Buy nothing but coffee. Sit and eat nothing but coffee. Find good wine by  the glass in a place by Rutgers. Go for walk in freezing, handsomely landscaped park.  

In New Jersey I begin to know something bad is coming my way.  

I have no proof of this knowing: having not said anything to anyone, written anything  down. It is, I realize, a moderate knowing, a tug, temperate and kind. It is: dim lamplight. I  will explain further on. Why I was able to know. And what.  

When she leaves New Jersey, I ask friend if she is relieved.  

No, not at all. Actually kind of miss it, she says. Perhaps I have Stockholm Syndrome.  

Perhaps all locations so long as temporary, as momentary, as boundary, as aural become  similar to soothe, similar to hope, explicit as events that can be underlined, encircled, as  good.

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Vs.

Sudden seizure, unexplained, unanswered. The underlying cause of fifty percent of seizures  remains unknown. This I learn from neurologist, whom I begin to internalize as White  Doctor because of white bald head atop white small face atop white bald coat.  

Unknown is presented as resolution, as a factual form of knowing. It is clear fact, the clear  fact is we do not know. This a fact the patient may take home.  

The medical, clinical word for “unknown” is not “remarkable.” “Remarkable” is not a  medical nor a clinical term. Only “unremarkable” applies, is applicable, to organs of body of  person that are unremarkable because they work. The word for conditions that find  resolution in the inexplicable is “idiopathic.”

Here are the terms above used in real world sentence of common words: My boy has  unremarkable body organs, vital signs, blood that flows, yet lives, apparently, with a  condition that is idiopathic.  

Idio vs. pathic.

Vs.

The MRI comes back clear. Wait. Not clear, clear. Not EEG clear.  

New neurologist, neurologist who’s on duty on Monday, super friendly bubbly bouncy  neurologist, who delivers information, says MRI has something, actually. Something she  would never have called. But they called it. They. The technicians who operate levers of  MRI machine. They named it, the object—

“MRI revealed right centrum semi-ovale along the posterior superior aspect of the right  frontal lobe (cortical dysplasia vs. small area of gliosis vs. hypomyelination).”

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Versus vs. or. Or vs. either. Either vs. nor.  

The bubbly bouncy neurologist would have never called it vs. the written, printed record in  my hand, my large hand, that does. Industrious idiopathy—

In the lamplight, downed.

Vs.

I write my army of witch doctors from the ground floor good coffee place while I wait for  boy to emerge from MRI. Elsa, Sergio, Elizabeth, Lucila, Nelly. The MRI will be fine they say,  but he will need help, he will need zinc, magnesium, B6, B12, belladonna, selenium, CBD but  the good kind, the kind compact with TCH. Check his blood, every week, check chemical  imbalances, para-thyroid, Epstein-Barr, herpes, iron, heavy metals. No wheat, no sugar, no  dairy, nothing that lives in the sea. No Mario Kart. Some FIFA, with measure, should be fine.  Look up “le petit mal.”

They are going to try to get you to take medication, my witch doctors say. Wait on the  medication. As soon as you can bring him, bring boy, to me.  

Tráemelo.

Vs.

The day after we emerge from hospital, I arrange a two-hour conversation with Sergio,  master of astrology, dharma vs. karma, which includes consequences of food put repeatedly  into mouth. He tells us boy has a Hamer point in his brain. An area of darkness formed  from traumas generated in utero or within the first two years post birth.  

Sergio who knows my story since before boy’s birth. Since the start of husband life, ten  years ago. Sergio knows what happened in utero, pre-birth and post.

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La muerte de mami y papi. Mami y papi convertidos en mamá y en papá, he says. The death  of mommy and daddy. Mommy and daddy transformed into mom, into dad.

The day my daddy goes into hospital to get 1.5 liters of plasma drained from the hematoma  in his brain I tell daddy I am pregnant with boy. I say, Papi voy a tener un niño. Te tiene que  ir bien. Daddy, I am going have a child. It must go well.  

Daddy does not emerge. Not clear, not even unclear. Not ever. How, what, why, incidental.  Who is the answer to which question, the only question, is whom.  

Vs.

I take five pregnancy tests the night I consider I may be heavy with child. All confirm I am  incidentally unempty. The diagnosis is clear.

Vs.

Before hospital discharge, we are told we must watch video on handling seizures at home.  Roll patient to side. Check for loose items in mouth. Attempt removal of objects if found.  Insert diazepam up rectum if seizure becomes cluster. Cluster in terms of seizure, like in  the real world, means collection, means gathering, but a clutter of motion, accruing,  amassing. As in horde, or stampede.  

Diazepam goes up the butt because throat passage may be shut. Injection uncertain during  cluster attack. As in boy will move fierce, even gripped by your hands.

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Vs.

Boy is six. Seven years ago, my daddy’s mind left, gone. Time as adult spans back, as it, as  time, in present, holds still. Grasps firm: bridges back. Wingspan of bird, bent out, back,  then in, again back out, practical lever of physical, transfiguring flight, attached forever to  body, to core, of self-same, of singular bird.  

Past attached to present, no matter how far past. Shapes and sways, despite seven years  ago. Tonight I write of daddy past, left, gone; nevertheless, Sergio says, boy needs a story much sounder, much warmer, than that.  

Vs.

Emerge

is word,

incidentally,

transformed.

Vs.

Now, the speaking about. To family, to friends. The few. To other doctors. The several.  Many. Manifold.

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Husband theorizes that Cubans talk so much because there is so little, materially, left in  Cuba. No things, only people. Because there are no objects, there is talk. I have been given an object: a cortical dysplasia vs. small area of gliosis vs. hypomyelination object. An  indeterminate object, remarkable in its manifold forks of lexicon. To determine it, it  requires talk. I talk. But I still don’t have object, determinate as one.  

I have nothing, materially, so I talk.  

Vs.

Give him the Keppra, and if the seizures go away, then we know they were seizures, says the foamy, fizzy neurologist after our post-MRI with right frontal lobe gliosis vs. dysplasia vs.  hypomyelination non-diagnosis that bubbly, bouncy neurologist would not have called, but  MRI report does call, but what it calls it does not call one thing.  

A name vs. another name vs. another. Minute defect, abundant in words. Unclear, for boy,  for us, this not-clear MRI.  

The bubbly, the bouncy, the fizzy, the foamy, the super-duper friendly neurologist is the  second neurologist who visits us in the hospital. I want her as doctor. Can I please have her  as doctor. No. Sorry. Our out-of-hospital neurologist must be the first neurologist, the  white, White Doctor with the white bald coat, the white bald terms. The one who sees us  after clear, clear EEG, who says it is time for MRI of the brain and of the spine. For which  boy must lie supine—

Like a patient, etherized upon a table.

The first doctor, the White Doctor, our doctor, checks boy for birthmarks. Birthmarks of  skin, he says, usually mean birthmarks of brain.  

The brain and the skin form simultaneously, in utero, he says. Does your boy have marks.

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Yes, one on back thigh.

But doctor checks boy’s back. Finds a mark I’d seen before but never gripped as mark. Was  not awake aware of its presence. I feel embarrassed. The doctor and his entourage make  note of the mark on back.  

There is one on his thigh, I say, again.  

The White Doctor looks, finds it, his medical school crew smiles, takes note. Mom, mommy,  was right. She knows her boy.

White Doctor gives boy a neurological physical, for which he employs little tools found in  his little black doctor’s bag. A rod shaped like giraffe with which to tap boy’s knee with  which to make knee snap. Knee snaps.  

Physical is fine, doctor says.  

Team writes.  

Boy laughs.  

I snap.

Vs.

It’s happening.

Vs.

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

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(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

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