More particularly, one of many hospital beds
in a hospital where my son is being treated
for the bone sticking out of his leg
from a soccer game
using my insurance that I bought for him
because he is too young, only twelve
to have bought any insurance of his own.
Nor has he any right to vote in a country
where his elected representatives
are about to take away his health insurance
by making mine too expensive to afford.
This morning, the news shows how easily
this President and this Congress can take away
a person’s health insurance, my child's, mine
or yours, for example, this President
and this Congress a bit like a hospital bed
in a country as ill as ours is now.
Whatever hope we now have lies in a hospital bed
and the medicines we can use to remove
this pestilence, if we can just take them off
the shelf—for there they sit—and use them
before it’s too late. My son is still young enough
to love me unconditionally, as much as he
loves soccer, even though I wasn’t strong enough,
nor my countrymen strong enough, to rise up
and stop this thing from happening. But there is still
time to act if we are strong enough,
if we are determined enough, to find a cure.
But judging by how things have gone so far,
who can foresee with what success
and with what result?
Gil Hoy is a Master’s Class student in fiction and poetry at The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and previously studied at Boston University. Gil's been nominated for a Best of the Net award in poetry. His work has previously appeared in Third Wednesday, Flash Fiction Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, The Penmen Review, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, The New Verse News, and elsewhere.
