Cancer Frags/Repose

Cancer Frags

Repose

Positions of repose: I have one only. Sitting up, just as I have been all day. The bed table adjusted medially to a position midway between the clavicle and xyphoid process, a pile of 4 X 4’s arranged neatly at the proximal corner, to support my massive bowling ball of a skull, fallen forward, balancing gratefully upon the only spot on my body that doesn’t hurt. My Original Scar. This scar on my forehead near the hairline was left by the 15 stitches I endured after a childhood feat of derring-do. I was 4 or so, and keeping up with a big brother. It was the only other time in my life that I’d ever been stitched up. I thought about that identifying feature, how dependable it was this night—tough, dense and painless, a fait accompli, a little bit pointy. A bowling ball on a tiny tee. Maybe I will drift off.

I thought about the time I lay very small with my grandmother, in her huge, forbidden bed of birdseye walnut, under the familiar pastel of the wakeful baby (why did she hang that over her marriage bed?) when, running her fingers over the fresh scar, she puckishly told me I would now have a little pointy head. I felt lucky then as I do now—special, even—heaving the weight of these many stitches and staples, tubes and tethers, titanium screws and Penrose drains, into the sublime repose of my careful column of 4” gauze squares, safely balancing upon the rindy remains of a childhood accident, my old identifying feature, my touchstone.

Most nights go more or less like this.

—K.E.Watt, Brooklyn, NY

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	Cancer Frags Repose Positions of repose: I have one only. Sitting up, just as I have been all day. The bed table adjusted medially to a position midway between the clavicle and xyphoid process, a pile of 4 X 4’s arranged neatly at the proximal corner, to support my massive bowling ball of a skull, fallen forward, balancing gratefully upon the only spot on my body that doesn’t hurt. My Original Scar. This scar on my forehead near the hairline was left by the 15 stitches I endured after a childhood feat of derring-do. I was 4 or so, and keeping up with a big brother. It was the only other time in my life that I’d ever been stitched up. I thought about that identifying feature, how dependable it was this night—tough, dense and painless, a fait accompli, a little bit pointy. A bowling ball on a tiny tee. Maybe I will drift off. I thought about the time I lay very small with my grandmother, in her huge, forbidden bed of birdseye walnut, under the familiar pastel of the wakeful baby (why did she hang that over her marriage bed?) when, running her fingers over the fresh scar, she puckishly told me I would now have a little pointy head. I felt lucky then as I do now—special, even—heaving the weight of these many stitches and staples, tubes and tethers, titanium screws and Penrose drains, into the sublime repose of my careful column of 4” gauze squares, safely balancing upon the rindy remains of a childhood accident, my old identifying feature, my touchstone. Most nights go more or less like this. —K.E.Watt, Brooklyn, NY © 2004, K. E. WATT. All rights reserved.
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