"The Sick Child."
A small child is ill, has wakened.
It is winter, past midnight in Antwerp.
Above a wooden chest, the stars shine.
And the child relaxes in her mother's arms.
The mother does not sleep.
She stares, fixedly, into the bright museum.
By spring, the child will die.
Then it is wrong, wrong to hold her.
Let her be alone, without memory,
as the others wake, terrified, scraping the dark paint
from their faces.