The Worm Doctor

With the utmost care, she would rescue 

the shrivelled bodies of earthworms from our garden path;

cradling their fragile figures, placing her patients 

into water hoping to revive them – 

return them to their plump, healthy state.

The neighbours’ kids would help her find them – 

those pitiful creatures, way beyond saving.

United in their innocent hope,

they bonded with a naïve trust in their ability to heal, 

to simply love things back to life.

When she was a teenager, she didn’t care about worms anymore.

She cared about straightening her hair so those tight curls 

did not become home to chips in the dinner queue

or attract curious hands in the corridor – 

childhood resilience lost beneath

fair foundation and the peer-pressure of a pale-skinned world.

The neighbours’ kids were no longer kin to her:

bonds broken by British bigotries 

and the differences that once went unnoticed.

Every now and then, I’d hear her in her bedroom

lamenting the loss of not knowing,  

crying and praying she could simply love things back to life.