It starts with a droop of the chin.
A fleeting nod of despair.
The Mamuna1 takes what she wants
And launches you into nightmare.
The first nurse we met disbelieved us
“Over-anxious young parents” she laughed
His ten month old hands tensed and relaxed
As the blow of each spasm rolled past
The tired young doctor sat silent
When I asked if my child would die
I mumbled the words “game over”
But how could he know the reply?
So suddenly we had been visited
By Shakespeare’s most feared fairy queen
My little changeling slept soundly
Despite the beeps of machines
The MRI scan in the morning
Provided no route from our pain
As the tumours that grew in his body,
Interfered with the course of his brain
Tuberous sclerosis is a crapshoot
You never know what you’ll get
Tumours in the eye – blindness
In the heart – potentially death.
How had I failed as a mother?
The Mamuna had slipped past my guard
I should have wrapped him in ribbons
Kept him close on nights moonlit and starred
Kept the hearth burning at nighttime
Covered his head with red caps
But our little boy is a fighter
When death came he screamed back
The Slavic demon returned him
Still our boy’s scared of the night
Don’t switch off the light please he begs now
Mummy, don’t switch off the light.
- A demoness rumoured to snatch babies, replacing each human baby taken with her own offspring. ↩︎
Angsty Poems 