He sat strapped into his chair like a shrunken scarecrow.
A motorized miniature from the Wizard of Oz, roaming the yellow brick road in his chrome chariot.
His clothes hung from his stick thin limbs like fresh wash on a clothesline.
As new as the day his Mom brought them home from the store.
Adournments for a body on display, not designed to be used.
Around and round circles ring, whole, symmetric complete.
But the coil of life, puzzle pieces in a whirl, must be free, infinite, unfettered.
The text misprinted, the logic destroyed, the flesh misshapen, the extremties unusable.
Tied to his wheelchair like the scarecrow to his rack, guarding a field of linoleum on the hospital ward.
His eyes blind to color and light, I saw only clouds as I peered into his mind with my inquisitive scope.
The boy's hair had the texture of straw on his nubbin head and he smelled of dry leaves before the winter's chill.
His useless limbs twisted and fine, delicate as dried twigs, they draped his John Deere in the vegetable garden of his imprisoned life, bound with the barbed wire of his treacherous genes.
He could move his head, and played a game of cat and mouse to us tinmen, who lumbered by his throne with our toolboxes full of bright scopes and latex gloves, frozen saucers and wasp sharp stings.
His head would bow, limp upon his neck like an overripe sunflower at the end of its stalk.
As our footsteps grew louder his Jack-in-the-box head would fly up, a clown's grin upon his silly face.
Was this the boy or his disease we would wonder despite the reruns of his show.
What could he know? This crumpled moonbeam parading as a child in rumpled clothes.
But one day upon a whim, I took him for a ride into the big blue sky and over the rainbow.
I grabbed the handles of his chair and slowly, slowly began to spin.
His head shot up like a shooting star, his twiggy limbs stiffened even more.
Faster and faster, I whirled him and twirled him.
A twister on the hospital floor, sending doctors, nurses and patients diving for cover as we spun, building like cotton candy strands.
His mouth opened wide, a huge smile spread across his face like sunshine pouring over a mountain's edge.
Beams of light speared through the clouds that filled his eyes.
A rusty hinged croak jumped from his throat as he hee-hawed a laugh as I flung him to the moon, ruby red slippers upon his feet.