All bodies look frail on hospital gurneys,

laid out like sacks of flour.

Limbs tucked in like a night-bloomer, midday.

Brown skin looks pale, white skin paler still.

Hair that shines with sparks-fly-golden strands in the sun lies limp and bark-brown.

Sheenless.

After anesthesia her eyes flick open rapidly, wildly-

then fall shut slowly.  I don’t think she’s here yet, though we’ve had this small ocular exchange.

The monitor shows me her pulse in a crazy blue line

drawn by an invisible Harold-with-his-crayon.

Children- even almost-teens- look so small surrounded by white sheets,

and grey-blue scratchy linen.

Head perfectly still, one index finger eerily lit by a pulse-taking-hardware,

alchemies pour into her vein through the clear tubing taped to her arm.

Her warm hands belie the death-like sleep.

She awakens again and I ask if she wants me to put on her glasses (the world is out of focus enough)?

She tries to speak- panic enters her eyes as she finds her mouth full of blood-soaked gauze,

her tongue a swollen, leaden mound, her throat burning.

No voice. I slip the frames over her ears and watch her slip back into sleep.

Bad omens- I uttered these words yesterday in tears as I fell asleep.  So much death I’ve heard of lately-

the Reaper coming in from behind with his scythe striking the blow

before even the intended victim notices there’s something amiss.

I’m sure my child is already earmarked by a fluke that will leave me stricken in the waiting room.

But she isn’t.

Even after the anesthesiologist failed twice to find her vein due to his shaking hands.

Even after I’m certain the operation has gone on for far too long, and they are merely prepping how to tell me she is gone.

She is fine.

She is before me- groggy, swollen, bleeding, so small between the stretcher’s metal arms.  She is here.

Finally, I exhale.