Gift

I arrive
pregnant with expectation
thrilled to start a new day
up the winding cliff face.

She lies still
on her cot, tiny chest
shuddering with the effort of each breath.
I lay
hand after hand
on her shrunken back
waiting for reassurance
as they feel the juddering
shuddering
catching as she breathes.

They send us
as we are never sent
clutching red file under one arm
listless child in the other
dressed in her best
as if to show
our weakest at their greatest strength.

The doctor reads off her history
no birth date
and that hits me hard in the chest
zero November two thousand and nine
our tiny soul
pneumonia, malaria, suspected meningitis
and if they had been right!
no sweet babe in my arms.
Hold for observation.

She tests negative for malaria, no fever
and not a cringe when the needle
plunges through her paper thin
first percentile skin.
Blood filled with questions
painful suspicions squeezed ruthlessly
and without dissent
from her tiny fingertip

She is too small for chest scans
too young for an HIV test
so she is handed offhand
a prescription for antibiotics
Treat for pneumonia
Nothing else we can do.

For once first and third world agree
today we helped
but her prospects are not good.
Nothing else I can do.

Once a mother
in who knows what state
of agony or ecstasy
looked down and named her Zawadi. Gift.