"The Sickler's Fortune," A Poetry Post

Sickle cell is
a
disease for
lovers.

It is unkind to
mothers who
wake in the
midnight hour,
hovering over their
screaming infants,
consoling through
full-flowing tears and
holding back
deep sobs of
regret and
remorse.

It is unfair to
siblings who
play second fiddle to
older or younger
sufferers,
the people who become the
banes of existence for their
mourning and mumbling
parents.

It is unyielding for
children who are
struggling
beneath the
weight of watching a
father or mother or
guardian writhe in pain and
subject him or herself to
mounds of too-powerful
painkillers.

But,
to a devoted wife or husband who can
follow the body's fevers and
locate the pulsating places of
stuck life,
the illness is a
sticking place where
hands become
instruments of
healing.

What a fortune a sickler has won if
he or she can find some
one to rub the
pain
away.