Issue 14, December 1997
Alex Pilling - Poem

In the early stages
of her seemingly unending war
with the disaffected ineffective
white blood cells 
that were vital to her existence
continuing to her sixth birthday 
and beyond;
when our pain and our fear
had become less disabling
through weary familiarity,
we crept home one night
leaving her sleepy and content
in her isolation cubicle;
connected to an electric pump
that was gently feeding 
her collapsing veins  
with the competent blood 
of an anonymous samaritan.

Imagine the horror 
sparking within the heart 
of another child's mother,
when, 
in the murmuring small hours
between midnight and dawn,
she tiptoed in 
to comfort and reassure
our chalk-white little angel
and stepped into a room
whose walls ran red;
the floor sticky underfoot
from gravity's effect 
on the bloody mist
that hung in the air.

Applaud the devotion
of the bone-tired 
night nurses who scrubbed 
every inch clean 
with surgical thoroughness
to ensure that upon our return
we would be greeted
only with an amusing story.

Of how, 
during her restless, troubled night
our little girl had rolled over
and detached herself 
from the pulsing line
that had been patiently pushing 
the life-giving blood 
into her tiny arm
as she slept.

The needle had then swung up
and around
with each pulse of the pump,
hazing the enclosed space
with the scarlet of billions 
of microscopic droplets
until the bag was empty
and the room was full.

That unknown samaritan 
who bled once in person
and once again by proxy
is one of very many good people
who played their part
in the hope-filled life story 
of a bright, beautiful and healthy
seventeen year old 
young lady.

But she also watched
as so many of her little friends
fell to the merciless onslaught
of such a vicious unseen enemy;
overwhelmed by the burgeoning
of an army within themselves
and of themselves.

This particular war is fought
inside the bodies of little children
who either grow up way too fast
or not at all.