Identifying Things

Is diabetes catching, he asks,

middle-school braggadocio edged

this time with something else, I can't

quite put my finger on it,

until he tells about the needle,

that kid Jamie, jabbing a needle he had picked up

on the street, punctured far into the flesh

of my son's palm.

Trouble boils a greasy steam into the air.

Whose needle, what kind, whose veins

had it entered? My son, my son, only eleven

years old and the doctor over the phone doesn't help,

his nurse says you bet, plenty for worry here,

tests for AIDs could run into thousands,

and don't forget, three strains now

of hepatitis, find the needle,

bring in the needle, make sure those boys

find that needle.

Under the oaks

a new kind of bird flocks at the feeder,

I have no idea what they are, they swarm

and dart around the perches, on the ground,

they are everywhere, and outside their shrill

wheezing chokes out the drone of trucks on the interstate.

So he will teach us death, perhaps.

We will allow him the perfect death.

We will all work on dying

together, we will give him that, and maybe

it won't even happen, maybe the needle

belonged to Jamie, he's a diabetic,

maybe it was just one of his own insulin needles,

probably there is nothing in the world

to worry about, chances are slim, we mustn't

upset our boy, mustn't blow this out

of proportion.

I can't identify

the birds. They are too streaked

for goldfinches, they could be

warblers, winter plumage, but their beaks

are a little thicker, I'm just not sure

and none of these walls

line up straight.

When the boys find the needle and take it

to the principal and you stop by school

our kid is most upset because his father

is actually seen by his friends, only nerds have

parents who enter this territory,

he will never live it down, his own father

picking him up in front of his friends,

driving him to the doctor's. Just a little needle,

the kind for pricking a finger for small

blood samples, adults always overreact.

The doctor and the nurses laugh out loud,

at home the walls rise crisp

to the ceiling where the light dances.

And the new birds

are pine siskins, yes, they are,

just a little yellow on the wings and tail,

it helps, it always helps when you know

what things are.