hospital bed

*

The pink tattered blanket holds all the world’s sadness in its gruff. I want to hold his hand. I want to touch his face, his big bald forehead like an Easter’s egg. His hands are long and slender and bony like my grandmother’s. I wait for him to gain enough poise in his body to untuck his shaking arm out its dirty sheet and carry the trembling angel over to me. But then I leave and I am afraid to touch anything; even after I’ve washed, even after I’ve doused my hands with alcohol which makes them smell like a dentist, I’m afraid to touch my own face, I won’t pick up my sandwich.