Katie Schmid’s chapbook, Forget Me, Hit Me, Let Me Drink Great Quantities of Clear, Evil Liquor, is available from Split Lip Press.
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.