Sunrise, September Five

Sparrow flies by the corner room’s corner window. Flies when it sees me. Faces East. So much hair; dark, “It looks cherry in this light,” my mother says through the phone.           My other daughter at home with grandma. I don’t know how to do this: share myself.           With mother. You.
          I elevator down to the cafeteria, grab coffee and dark chocolate. Climbing stairs still hurts my stomach; 3 sets of stitches. 
 
          “In your own words, say what we’re doing to you.” 
I say Emergency Appendectomy, and they corrected me; 
          “Removing your appendix,” as if I shouldn’t know the words this high. As if I shouldn’t own what’s mine. I am leaving me. Or being taken. My appendix, my mind. I don’t remember what happened next. “Why don’t hospital beds have USB ports yet?” I ask. “We’ll make millions.”  
 
Going under, the surgeon asks what I do for a living. I tell him I teach English. 
          “What are your favorite books?” he asks, trying to gauge when I’m asleep, I think. I’m conscious long enough to ask him which genre, to say Of Mice and Men, Art & Fear, Counting Descent. To tell him I reread those books the way I reheat meals. 
 
Waking up, my throat is too dry to ask, but the nurse hands me soda anyway. When the surgeon checks in, he mentions that he’s never read Steinbeck. I’m falling asleep, but tell him to read the shorter books. I tell him a poem is a book. I tell him that I know what the word “appendectomy” means. You meet me in my room soon after, and we wait. We’re just glad we aren’t sharing a hospital bed. I try to stand but can’t. 
 
At home, I couldn’t roll over.          Your hips hurt from the weight and we haven’t shared a bed in weeks. The couch rested your belly           or I wanted to give you extra room.
 
“In your own words, say what we’re doing to you.”
          “Inducing labor”
          “We’re gonna get this baby out of you,” again, correcting. 
          “Sure,” you say.
 
We wait.           Sleep, if we can. During labor we watch game shows with the doctor and nurse between contractions.           I’d feel bad about being inattentive if you weren’t joking about it. 
Why do hospital beds not have USB ports yet? you ask. 
          We’ll make millions. 
 
In my own bed two weeks ago, I am on a couch in the corner room of the mother and baby wing. On the phone with my mother, you say, “We’re just happy we weren’t sharing a hospital bed.” (Again? What is the joke, now?)
Charlie is born and I rest my forehead on yours.           This bed we aren’t sharing is the bed we share now. I have forgotten my second skin.           What’s mine was never mine.