Ole MooHer soft, fat, wrinkled neck rests on the shampoo bowl- water and soap flowing together onto her brightly colored mu-mu. I laugh as I carelessly spill water on the floor. She wets her pants from laughing so hard. Chest pains send her to the hospital today. Her body seems so small lying on the bed with its stainless steel rails. Sterile tubes go in and out of her doing the work her body should be doing itself; eating, breathing, excreting. The infection slowly eats her from the inside out. Her leg is bandaged from ankle to thigh. I tap on the window and she turns to look at me. She cannot smile because of the tube in her mouth, but her eyes shine, and the edges of her mouth turn upward. Later, as the nurse pulls the sheet over her head, I watch from the other side of the glass that shields me, wounds me. Slowly, her body turns blue- the scar on her leg has healed perfectly. |