Bobbi's
Page
(2 pieces)
1.Hot Astronomy
The moon was envious of the sun.
Her voice shining on blackberries.
The whir of bees on their seeds.
The moon was envious of the sun.
His cloud a cold cliff shadow.
His dim light on sad oceans.
The moon was envious of the sun.
Her warm fur too far to touch.
Her fingertips caressing crevices.
But the sun thought the moon beloved.
And swooned in his dark distance.
And
slept in his cupped crater palms.
Here's the piece I did for the paint chip prompt. The table was covered with Benjamin Moore paint chips and we were invited to shuffle through them until some color or name of a color triggered a thought, memory, or idea . . . I picked Blue Lapis.
2. Blue Lapis
After the juice and saltines, the nurse told me that all I was required to do was pee and then I could go home. The idea of leaving the recovery room, mixed with the after effects of anesthesia, sent my stomach lurching. Even the amidst the vivid and sickening blue lapis of the of the hospital walls, my hospital issue gown and booties, coupled with the blank stares of people still under the influence of some opiate or another, here in this chair, hitched to the IV pole was more comforting then anyplace I could imagine.
"Here, you'll need this," said the nurse and handed me a long and wide pad, tapered at each end. It reminded me of my grandmother and how she told me when she was young, she would have to wear rags and wash them out in the sink, how "lucky" we girls were to have such modern niceties.
Shuffling to the bathroom, the nurse guiding me by the elbow while I dragged the pole behind me, I felt numb from my brain down to my waist and wondered how, exactly, I was going to do this—was still wondering after the nurse closed the bathroom door behind her, letting me know she was there if I needed her.
And then I was alone, just me and the strange long pad and when I lifted up the johnny, I saw the belt and elastics and thought how on earth I was going to manage this. With the IV pole stuck to the top of my hand, pinching while I tugged off the one pad (wait a minute…how did that get there? When I was asleep? Who put it there?) I attempted to put the other pad into the tiny hooks—the plastic tubing of the IV getting caught in the ties of my johnny, and the blood dripped steadily down my leg. A large bright red puddle was forming around my shocking blue feet, but that didn't seem as strange as this hook and elastic mechanism. And when the nurse came in to get me, I didn't realize at the time that the look on her face was of fear, and not of sympathy to my dilemma.
—Bobbi Ruggiero
