Efi Hatzimanolis #70 'No stopping where he wants to go'

For Alex

I begin with a bloom behind my eyes,
the daffodil, the first to open in the Midlands,
and the boy with schizophrenia who comes from a good family,
sleeping out today. 
The daffodil grows where Stafford’s old lunatic asylum once stood - 
new housing where we lived ignorant of what I understand today,
how scared the boy is of his medicine,
every molecule a poisoned promise of dullness, diabetes and dementia, 
- it’s an outcome, you're either in or you’re out of your mind -
his brain leads him up the garden path
fashioning flower bombs out of singing daffodils,
he’s sleeping in the sun under a palm on the nature strip,
near his grandparent’s house for safety,
no stopping where he wants to go,
I find him on his desert island,
and wake him for a coffee.