the hospital looks like

  a hotel one too cheto to actually stay in Who would have known such a thing existed in

  Argentina Rain hovers outside my umbrella is purple and there is a small green tube in

  my battered bag Yes I’ve been asked to bring my own tube for this ear surgery should

  this worry me Brought into a room with a man with sharp glasses who asks me to read

  papers in Castellano signing away my life will I wake up after the operation I sign my

  life in dull blue ink with a ballpoint and they take me into a locker room I am handing

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  the lady my tube If I hadn’t remembered would she have asked What would they have

  put in my ear instead I am expected to put on a paper sheet dress glasses locked into

  the green metal box I am now blind and they push me down into a wheelchair I am

  still conscious but still they drive me as though the end is near Everyone is a blur

  unfocused syllables and phrases walking all around me For once in Argentina I’m

  reminded that I’m usually short as doctors and nurses hombres y mujeres strutting

  above me I’m on wheels plunging neckline barefoot dignity left in that mint-colored

  locker too The operation table meets at my chest and the doctor is laughing he might

  be thirty as he asked me to scale the table and extend my wrist for the blessed IV I

  land on the table pale and distressed as a riverless fish Needle lodged in tough left wrist

  skin I am pulling down on my paper dress sterile lights like motionless strobe above he

  is still laughing and wiping his glasses I miss my own lights out