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Sport 36: Winter 2008

Day something

Day something

Margaret is mad at the nurses.
The nurses who danced all night
and talked over our un-dancing bodies this morning.

Outside pigeons strut along the ledge
eating breakfast left by unhungry patients.

Last night the nurse massaged my leg.
Better than any pill.

Yesterday, all afternoon
the visitors stared at Peter's picture—
his tentative three-year-old steps
into circles and smiles—
arms that thread from the head, and legs
long and skinny
like string from a balloon.

page 101

Today they gave me a phone. I would rather have a leg.

All is quiet. No visitors. The room has been transformed. Malia is sitting on her bed deftly drying and plaiting her long black hair. Rubbing vanilla oil through it—and on her skin. Filling our room with tantalising smells. Malia who came to life after her shower—before that she was silent, face turned away from us and her husband. He played to us, she ignored him. But now, after being able to get out of bed and have a shower, she is different. You look reflective, someone says.

I'm thinking about my mother, she says. She has a brain tumour. She's paralysed down one side. I have to lift her. That's how I hurt my back.

Her husband returns with KFC, sits next to his silent wife and smiles at us until the curtains are closed.

Margaret hisses: that's why they all get diabetes—it's from KFC. Later, curtains opened, he offers us some of the KFC. We cannot resist, this is what our taste buds have been longing for. Later again, her husband gone, Malia says, I don't know why he brought KFC. I don't eat it.