OCR Text |
Show Woodworth/238 won't take off his. He only wants to look. "I already took mine off," she says, holding up her night-gown. "I'm naked as a jay-bird," she says. She remembers there was a jay fighting in the feeder. She laughs. Naked as a jay-bird. "Warty," tyegan says. She grabs Marty so that her outstretched arm is caught, dangling the nightgown behind them. "It's all right," she says. "It's going to be all right." Oh yes. The details. When they came, they lifted her carefully from both ends, like a rug, sagging in the middle, bunched awkwardly. Then pulled her out along the stretcher. She opened her eyes. The short brow hairs that were so persistent in growing back, even with plucking. The lids, yellowish and puffy from nicotine, like the fleshy thumb of a bum's hand or unbleached sheep's wool, they fluttered a few times, heart beats of baby rabbits, and then opened. Her mother's eyes were two violet dishes in a seaweed bed of red veins. Under the dried brown blood from her nose, her skin is yellowing, powdery. She still wore the military jacket, spackled with blood and crusted with eggs. All the joy in the little things. They need her. IV^egan is back. Where did she go? "Do you want to put this on?" she asks, handing her a robe. "Yes." "I've called Rachael. Rachael is going to come over. Do you want to see Rachael?" "Yes." "Do you want something to eat?" "Yes." She doesn't move. "Do you want to come downstairs with me, or wait here?" "Yes." |