Day 726

Every few hours, the doctor
is saying, a child 
goes into cardiac arrest.
Starvation.  The body
filled with toxins: contaminated
water, organs leaking poisons
into the bloodstream.  The heart
stops:  a four-year-old heart,
a twelve-year-old heart.  What
the heart has felt, what
it has carried, what it has had
to take in.  Every few hours
a child dies, or nearly.  The heart
unable to continue, unable
to witness anything more, unable
to grow, expand, open. 
Sometimes the blood
begins flowing again, breathing
starts, haltingly starts again.  But until
when?  Until what else
happens?  How is it possible
for a child’s heart to bear
everything that has been stopped?
Lost? Destroyed? Everything
there is to hold?