Pauline Rowe
Linus Has Chickenpox
Bless me, doctor.
It is 5 weeks
since my last period.
I am afraid of Linus,
my eldest son.
He is rising six
and has chickenpox.
Did this varicella live in me
some unripe night
so many summers gone?
I am not marked
with grey cap-gun scars
yet my skin finds
the pink dust
of calamine
familiar.
For consolation I think
my blood a river,
a galaxy of hopping frogs —
miniature, translucent,
like my embryonic child.
If not occupied with me
they would leap
from blade to leaf
in dark Amazonian forests
— able in water,
alive on dry land,
their globular toes
smoothly amphibian.
Each one beats
like the pulse
in the wrist
of a debutante.
Page(s) 51
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