Hayley Kay Bowen
POETRY BY HAYLEY KAY BOWEN
Good News: Buddy Valastro’s Hand is All Better and He’s Back to Cake Bossing
The only other patient in the waiting room is 73, probably.
Her feet are up in the stuffy brown room’s only recliner, and crossed
at the ankle like I crossed my fingers; like a hope, or like a lie. Like
she could be here all day. She’s been here all day. The drone of an interview
with the Cake Boss—back and better than ever!—on whichever morning talk show is
punctured by the metal click of her knitting needles, suturing a soft square of chenille.
She brought her knitting. There’s a heaviness that lands with the pain—
shoots down my left arm and up my jaw—but it stays there too, heavy and hot,
a meteor, firmly in the crater of my chest and I know I probably won’t see 73. I know
I probably don’t have time to learn to knit. Later, but only shortly,
when the radiologist injects the contrast dye into my IV he says, you’re
the youngest patient I’ve ever done this test on. And the warmth of the dye
spreads to my hips and my hands just like he had warned me it would. And I wonder
if this is what acceptance really feels like: kind of sleepy, and also kind of like
peeing your pants. And I know in two days my cardiologist will call to tell me
which purls my heart has dropped. And I know I’ll be back and back and back
to the waiting room. And I know that meteors will keep coming, keep staying. And I know
I’m the youngest I’ll ever be again.