Sunday Afternoon Emergency Room

When my son calls from a friend's, frantic, telling me his throat is swelling shut, I throw on the closest clothes and hit every pothole in the driveway much faster than I should.

I speed and say no, no, no, thinking, it's 5 years to the day since my grandmother died -- this isn't possible. Then, I'm superstitious.

Home now, and no one can tell me why my son's throat was closing, why his chest was jerking, why his legs were twitching when I first arrived at the ER. Benadryl and rest. School tomorrow as usual.

We sat there with a cup of his urine between us, the Dr. saying, I could test this, young man, but I'd rather trust you. Wouldn't you rather trust him, Mom? Who wouldn't. But then, I was 13 once.

"They're really nice here, Mom. I feel sort of special being here."

It brings to mind a Tony Hoagland poem:

**

Argentina

What I notice today is the aroma of my chiropractor's breath
as he moves in over my supineness, asking me where I bought
those shoes
at the same instant that he
wrenches my head abruptly sidewise
to crack my neck with a noise like popping bubblewrap.

It's January, no, it's February, it's Pittsburgh
and I've been so twisted by craving and loneliness and rage,
I feel like curling up on the floor of my room and crying,
"You never loved me anyway, not ever!"
though I'm not sure who I would be talking to.

Kath says February is always like eating a raw egg;
Peter says it's like wearing a bandage on your head;
Mary says it's like a pack of wild dogs who have gotten
into medical waste,
and smiles because she is clearly the winner.

And in Argentina, after the elections,
we hear the old president won't leave the office--
literally, they say--they can't get him out of the office!
He's in there with his little private army, eating caviar,
squandering state money on call girls and porno movies--
and if you've done any therapy at all, I think you'll see
the analogy.

How did I come to believe in a goverment called Tony Hoagland?
with an economy based on flattery and self-protection?
and a sewage system of selective forgetting?
and an extensive history of broken promises?

What did I get in exchage for my little bargain? What did I lose?
Where are my natural resources, my principal imports,
and why is my landscape so full of stony ridges and granite
outcroppings?

Having said that much,
having paid a stranger to touch and straighten me,
I walk out the door to my old car in the parking lot
--which, after the slight adjustment of a spring shower,
looks almost new again.

**

(the lines don't break right, but you get the gist)

So, we didn't test the urine. We're working on trust. Still, I wonder if I'm somewhat to blame. I wonder if a boy would call 'closing-throat' just to get a bit of special attention.