Day 452

The doctors can’t cure this nine month old child
of the bacteria that occupies his gut
because there are few antibiotics
and the water he needs to rehydrate
is the same contaminated water he drank
that gave him the infection.
If he were elsewhere, if this were another time,
he would go home, be fed, hydrated, given
medicines, and heal.  His parents
know that what he needs
will kill him, but what can they do?  He’s
thirsty, he’s crying out for water. 
What they can give him
will soothe his thirst and poison him.
And the doctors who save him for an hour,
a night, know that they’re saving him
only to see him buried, days
from now, in the hospital yard.