A Christmas Story

While Black Bart was getting his

you were getting yours –

sodium bicarb

calcium gluconate

D50

– not with a Red Ryder BB gun,

but a triple lumen CVC,

‘as beautiful,

as coolly deadly-looking a piece of weaponry as I’d ever laid eyes on.’

Bullets to save, not slay –

Mannitol

3% sodium

Zosyn.

Your family said it was your favorite movie –

the part when Flick’s tongue got stuck –

and so I looked at your tongue

leaden and dry and swollen

stuck

stuck

stuck

to the ET tube,

and I bathed it with Peridex

because you could not cry like Flick

or wave your arms

so Miss Shields could see from the window

your singular misery.

I could see it in front of me.

On Christmas morning,

you would not shoot your eye out –

your eyes would no longer open.

And that was the greatest gift you received,

or would ever receive –

despite my best efforts to keep it from you.