And so went the springtime.
I lived out of the basement of the hospital
Emergency room for the final week, in x-ray room 2.
The collimator light burned like the impending summer sun
And it wouldn’t go out.
I was the patient that wouldn’t fry:
I’d had too much practice
Under the tech's blow torch of a tongue:
I—immolated, extinguished—
Seething.
Still. Brown.
It all started with an ottoman and an iron. The burnt-orange Mini Cooper pulled up to our Goodwill donation door, parked. Out she stepped. A small, whimsical creature with flowing brown hair. We were immediately transfixed. She opened a back passenger door, disappeared, came back into view with the dying, tan ottoman wrestled in her arms. The inexpensive iron sat atop—perilously balanced. As she approached, it happened. She smiled.