Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it: The Gift After the accident, the hospital, they brought me aching home mouth pumped up like a tyre black stitches tracking the wound over my lip, the red slit signalling the broken place. And my son my tall, cool son of sixteen kissed the top of my head and over the curve of my shoulder laid his arm, like the broad wing of a mother bird guarding its young. Anyone who has known tenderness thrown like a lifeline into the heart of pain anyone who has known pain bleed into tenderness knows how the power of the two combine. And if I am a fool to give thanks for pain as well as tenderness and even if, as some would say there are no accidents - Still. I am grateful for the gift. (Chris Banks)