A Family History Poem by Morgan Michaels

There were two of them. She did the talking. He had the same thing, she said, as her.Because of what she'd had and what he now had, she's had a hip replacement. It ran in the family. Her cousin had it, too. This was her brother and she was taking care of him- making sure things went alright.

Donnie peered at the downcast young man slumped in the chair across the desk.

It was late and he was tired. Whenever that happened, his guard fell and he was subject to fits of preposterous empathy, like now.
He thought her impassioned concern for the well-being of a brother should be respected. Sympathy, whatever else it makes you, makes you credulous. Besides, they'd waited a long time.

He felt big-time sympathy and wondered what it must be like to have a hip replacement at her so-young age. That she didn't look too very healthy was beside the point. You had to give people the benefit of the doubt. The hip was done at Mt Sinai, she'd said, so she must be legit, right? She had no limp, so they must have done a good job, right? The doc who performed it retired, she said.

But, he was curious. What exactly was the problem? A shallow acetabulum? A femoral head disorder? Had she heard of Legg-Perth-Calve?

She hadn't

It would be nice to know....