Hospital Hush

    by Larina Warnock

The door to room 24 in 10-North

of Doernbecher Children’s Hospital

clacks when closed (no matter how

softly) like a horseshoe hitting pavement.

It doesn’t precisely echo (except

in my head after so many days), but darts

over and around steady beeps of oxygen

saturation monitors and blood pressure

machines to the ears of a sleeping parent

(because no parent really sleeps

in this place).

Half-awake in half-light,

I watch tender hands maneuver

my son’s trembling arms and tremoring

leg, inject valium (flushed with saline)

into his IV, adjust pillows and cords

while trying not to wake him or me.

How unfair that a stranger seems so much

more prepared than I (impossible not to

love the nurses) during these days

of waiting for news (any news), of waking

hour after hour no matter how softly

they tend him.

© 2009 Larina Warnock

Larina Warnock writes poetry and prose from Corvallis, Oregon where she lives with her husband and four children.  Her work, which often details the healing journey of her family, has appeared as a top ten winner in Writer's Digest's poetry competition, Wheelhouse Magazine, The Oregonian, Space & Time Magazine, Touch: The Journal of Healing, and many others. She serves as the site administrator for the Poets.org discussion forum, editor of The Externalist, chair of Writers on the River, and as a volunteer for CALYX.