Vaccine

A small boy stacks blocks
on the surgery floor.
She gives his mother
a flu shot.
Its like this all day,
the pinpricks,
the swabbing,
the perfection of sterility.

Minutes before
it happened
her son was sitting
sorting pine cones
at her feet.

A June morning.
The clearing,
the mountain pool,
air astringent pine,
water’s surface
webbed in light,
his compact body floating,
as if in solution.


Jane Frank (Queensland)