The Sand Hill Review http://www.sandhillreview.org 2009
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Convalescence How to find
words for the dimmed blue halls, the pillowed
footfall of night nurses, caps like white
moths floating above the faint cries, the
trays of serum-filled syringes— a stick and
then a burn—dividing the night like pie and days the same, only
brighter? How to catch
in the mind’s eye the moth on the
folding screen, wings spread wide like a book splayed on a tray?
Grandmother said a moth in a
room meant the shadow of death was near. Gray against white hovered,
loomed. She decided
then to remember everything, even the taste of rust that bloomed on
her tongue. This was how
she knew she was alive. Angela
Narcisco Torres |
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