Jill Michelle | Self-portrait as Hospital Bed
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She slides into me that January like a forlorn wish—half-risen belly between sheets, I cradle like a hand-printed prayer in limestone cracks. Planted under white blankets, a hopeful row of seeds in the last weeks of winter, she wants to sleep until our high-rise window blossoms spring’s powder blue skies, tries not to let her thoughts fly to last year’s loss, tries not to drown in the gray witching hour’s shift change, its swapped bed pads, ruby quilts of blood. Still as an un-rising sun on my cushioned horizon, corona of mussed hair spilled across pillows, she shifts gingerly between my guardrails, dreams herself a heron, rocked in palm-tree-top nest until the whispering breeze of gloved hands pries her back to still-dark day—her body, a wick cut too short, unable to bear flame. |
