The mornings of illness accumulated
in swelling globes of light within your belly.
As though you were gravid with miracle,
as though the miracle held illumination.
It was a strange vision
for your youngest, who had never witnessed
you with child—the body full—
a sign of the unrealized efforts now
turned inward;
to you, reclined in your hospital bed,
like a single white calla lily
lain against raw linen, your ample
petals tapered to the simple
stem of your exhausted form.
The exudate serum imprisoned within,
protein-rich and heady. Its message—
incomprehensible, no satin tongues,
no furnace to touch its origin.
2.
How could you not understand?
You heard my cries of pain,
smelled the chemicals in my puke.
Were you not moved?
Though it is true: certain things can’t be
spoken by the dying. As for the living—
they won’t dare guess at
the caverns of experience
held within the body,
couching the organs as in
a field of dark matter.
I wanted you to see it that way,
and measure it back to me; perhaps then
I could have accepted this suffering, or perhaps you could have.
Either way,
I couldn’t read your absent expression.
Lack of comprehension, I suppose, stands as its own
witness to the accusation of independence.
Only when I realized that could I finally
reach into myself for my own mother.
Dead now forty years, I held her gently
in my abdomen and we receded together.
3.
A young woman watches from the foot of the bed as the nurses perform paracentesis, draining the fluid from its carnal sack. The patient—beyond her body—closes her eyes, her face serene. And the nacreous fluids shine now as they join their glass houses beside the bed.
4.
-The patient is supine, awake and alert
-The ascitic fluid level is percussed to perform a paracentesis
-16 G angiocath is inserted at 45 degrees 4 cm superomedial to the anterior superior iliac spine (without imaging guidance), using z-tracking technique to minimize the chance of an ascites fluid leak
-Approx. 4 L of fluid removed from the peritoneal cavity
-Patient received 50 cc of albumin IV (25% solution) over 2 hours
-Patient reports reduced intra-abdominal pressure and relief of associated dyspnea
5.
In this view, it is important to note—the proportions are skewed: the girl is larger than in real life, and the glass bottles—much smaller.
(The contents:
like terror or love—
await their own proof
in extraction)
Sonya is a writer and poet residing in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in Arcturus, Paraselene, Latin American Literary Review, Roanoke Review, and others. Her first book, One Row After/Bir Sıra Sonra, was published by First Matter Press in 2022. Her second book is forthcoming with South Broadway Press.
