I point them out, the only color
in her white room with no sharp
points. Bright blue, an ocean
going vertical. She likes aquatic
creatures, knows orcas like
an oceanographer. She looks up
at the blue fish, nods, jumps
on the bed. I think of my
grandfather, who saw fish
outside his hospital window,
round like a porthole, before
he died. I do not want to leave.
I do not want to leave my
child with fish where
there should be walls. How
many ways the hospital has
driven death from this room—
everything smooth and round,
a submarine room, the doors
locked and the windows
reinforced. The barest blanket
and my daughter’s desperate body,
still jumping until the nurse
takes me away, makes me
surface without her.
–
Katherine Anderson Howell writes and parents in Washington, DC. She is a licensed esthetician, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the editor of Fandom as Classroom Practice: A Teaching Guide. Her poems can be found in Misfit Magazine, The Account, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, among others.