Type Dancing

I CAN’T SLEEP
By David Allen

I can’t sleep
while my son sleeps
this troubled sleep.

A seizure slapped his skull
with a wash of blood
that squeezed his brain
and forced the sleep
with eyes rolled up white
and shaking limbs,
a tube plunged down his throat
to help him breathe,
while one in his skull
drains the invading blood.

And we caress him
and hold his hands
and give assurances
of undying love
as he sleeps
the drug induced sleep
from which we were told
might never end.

I can’t sleep
while my son sleeps
what well might be
the final dream
about what may or
may not come next.

NOTE: My 34 year-old son, Matthew, suffered a massive seizure which flooded his brain with blood. He was’ in a coma in an Intensive Care Unit at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Indianapolis for two weeks. . He spent several months recuperating, but still has. problems.