You were 17 years old, 98 pounds.
My fist on the bone between
your breasts, you huffed with each
push, merely an illusion of life— it
was the sweat from my shoulders
pumping blood through your body.
When Dr. Felix closed your eyelids,
I cried. Not because I will miss you
(I never got to find out how to make
you giggle or what little you had envisioned
for an older you) but because you should
not have died before you had the chance
to create life in your womb, to feel the frenzy
of your body amplified in another.
You came for us to help you, to make the
pain in your stomach, the dizziness, the
confusion go away. We took your pressure,
100/50, blood sugar, 70, asked questions
your Mom answered because your brain
acted like it was stuffed with cotton,
and sent you to drip blood into lab tubes.
I’m not asking God, “Why”— I know. Fifteen
minutes after your Mother shrieked at the
silence of your still body we saw your
Widal test—320. Typhoid attacked,
medicine and your heart failed you.
