skin curled into the fragile lining of an eggshell
you lie on the floor,
of the oilfields general hospital,
hand wrapped like a membrane
around your shoulder.
I watch the pain crack you open,
yolk spill down the halls.
I watch yellow brand itself between your lips.
the nurse asks for your name and faces type with a slowness,
look for records of your past.
get off the floor, they say,
but you barely move.
your limbs, shoulders: mechanically alien
I’d never known that fathers and daughters
come from the same,
breakable,
bodies. I imagine the pain,
spilling through you,
hear it sliding down bleached halls,
crawling like frost under blue gowns
and cold skin.
I try to show them that the pain is a clamp around your tongue,
that less than a year ago,
e-coli snuck into your veins,
a red shadow, stalking blood cells.
they take you away and for hours, I wait,
plum-eyed,
in the bathroom.
—