Poems

Here I am, a few years on It was hard enough explaining where Daddy had gone She knows there’s something far wrong with me How can I explain about HIV I see the sadness, the fear in her eyes Each time I have to be hospitalised and I see the way she looks at me Each time I take my AZT ‘I thought these pills were to make you well, So why are you still sick then, go on mum tell Quick mum, here, be sick in this basin’ I can see within her tiny mind racing ‘I’ll help you mum, watch you don’t fall’ and she treats me like a china doll Then the moment for something, I was very scared The question that I had not prepared ‘Why do I get a jag mum, why do I get blood taken?’ The moment of truth now there can be no faken ‘Well it’s the doctor’s special way of knowing that inside you there’s no bugs growing Tiny bugs that can make you unwell’ I had no choice but the truth to tell ‘You don’t have these bugs darling, so there’s no need

to worry’ ‘But you have, mummy,’ she says in a hurry ‘Yes my lamb, in me these bugs grow’ ‘When you die mummy, where will I go?’ I don’t know the answer to that question Instead I made this stupid suggestion Shall we go to the fridge and get some Ice Cream Then we had a cuddle, and I said I’m here I wish I could take away all her fear her blood just now may not be infected but by HIV she is most definitely affected I don’t fear dying anymore Just for a special little girl who’s only four.