Beads of courage

                     (Beads given to children undergoing cancer treatment)      
       
       
those beads      
a great swathe      
a myriad of colour      
but from a distance, black and blue      
as if they, not the boy, took the hiding      
beaten to death, from the inside out      
by the cruelty they call treatment      
       
too quickly too heavy for his young neck      
bead by bead, day by day, they grow      
on the back of the last door he'll ever see      
barring escape      
feeding on him, cell by punished cell      
he labours under the weight of breaking skin      
and his mother's unrelenting hope    
as she says yes, yes, to every one     
       
on what he knows to be his last day      
punch drunk, almost blinded, nose running blood      
he hurries to thread the final few glass baubles      
his gift to her      
courage on a string      
       
they open out his chest      
in the name of knowledge      
she threads the final bead, a purple heart      
in the name of love,      
drapes the whole sorry mess on his emptied chest      
her only son      
to hide the row of staples      
showing through his Sunday best      
       
more than two thousand beads ...      
do it, count them      
count them angry      
one bead for every faith inflicted pain      
every one a wasted prayer      
count them down to a six-nailed coffin,      
and the six nails where they now hang      
pride of place, in his mother's house      
an unbeliever's cross, rosary for a lost son      
their job is done      
she prays no more      
       
those beads      
those fucking beads    
he never wore them    
but by God she still does