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One Poem 

Katie Schmid

After the Hospital

He took me to the Big Fancy, that grocery store
where illusion back-lights the dairy case & everything

pulses with blue light. I shuffled the store, still unsteady,
still in my pajamas. In the snack aisle, fifty-seven kinds

of chips, all so beautiful, shiny & wet. I had insisted
that I be able to get whatever I wanted after the procedure.

Still groggy from the anesthesia they had used to get inside
me, to cut it out, the olive bar seemed obscene the longer

I stared at it: many wet nodes! wet eyes! Everything in here
glistens. I should be able to have anything, anything I want.

Where is it? My hospital band means absence. It collars
my wrist where I am a dog to my lack.