Ode to my PAO Scar

 Ode to my PAO Scar


I walk into the
hospital
on my own two feet --
my glasses
fogging up
from the blue
paper mask
and my heavy, nervous
breaths.

I wake up
to a long, white gauze
bandage
taped down
my left hip --
and a rainbow of
flowers in
breakable vases
on the shelf.
Sent to watch
over me,
stand-ins
for the people.

Alone,
for days,
I sleep some
sweating
and some chilled
under piles of thin,
cotton blankets --
sometimes serenaded
by lullaby tones,
mothers giving
birth
alone
until they are not.

More often,
though, are
the codes --
blue, demanding,
mournful, and tired.
Nurses forget
to whisper,
at the station
outside my door,
so I can
hear them --
I try not to be
a bother.

I leave the
hospital
pushed out the
double doors
three days later.
When I see my
Mother,
I cry --
and pull her softness
in around my
neck.

The bandage
comes off at home
a day later.
Skin puckered,
the dried blood of the
incision brown,
trapped
vacuum-sealed under
tape --
the wound like a
mountain-range
running north
atop my hip.

Now,
it’s faded some.
A map
I can still read
upon my body
to find
my way
in the world --
I run my fingers
along the
scarred skin
whenever I
think
I am alone

-- Melinda Scott Elswick, Adult