Open Writing

I came upon you, boy-on-the-side-of-the-road,
sprawled in gravelly sand edging the bush by the smooth tar road,
the road to the beach among the dunes.
Your stunned friend stood like wax holding his bike,
(yours lay shattered)
and thin, ragged, toothless ‘bush-people’ stood gaping,
staring after that truck,
the truck that brushed you and ran on,
now way out of sight. There was nothing to steal.
Nothing to eat.
Your thighs were slashed open showing meat and bone
and a layer of thick yellow fat, oozing, lumpy, on your raw pink flesh.
Your eyes were rolled back, and
Mommeee mommeee mommeee
Mommeeeeeeeeee
you screamed.
A thin high unreal voice from far away shrieking
Mommeeeee ee ee ee
Mommee–mommee-mommee-mommeeeeeeee

I did what I thought had to be done, boy:
Picked you up on a beach towel
Laid you on the cold metal floor of the combi:
And with the counterpoint a desperate urgent ‘Go, lady, go’ ‘go lady go’
from some bystander suddenly there crouching over you
Go, lady, went, broke the traffic laws sped through red lights
swung round corners, faster, faster,
go lady go lady
louder, louder;
‘mommee mommmeee mommmm’ fainter and fainter.

A cacophony of hooting, shouting, squealing of brakes..
and swooping in silence into the driveway of the hospital
as the unknown shapeless companion of the road slid away
and the shadowy shapes of nurses appeared, took over -
‘We can’t move him until the doctor comes’
‘Put a blanket over him’ Shaking their heads. Whispering.
Just wait a bit. (They didn’t think you’d make it, anyway.)

The Doctor came:
Took over.
Bustled you away on a trolley.

I went home.
No one asked my name:
I just went.

You made it alright,

I saw your picture in the paper a week or so later,
Lying in bed smiling,
Holding the hand of the father they had flown from far away.
When they’d thought you wouldn’t make it.

You were twelve, then, I think,
And I was twenty-five.
How has it been for you this last fifty years or so?

It’s been more-or-less OK for me.