A chubby boy wearing green sweats whines to his father,
"But when do I get my snack?" 

I’m impatient for the pleasant part, too.
I stare at a silver cart full of gauze, cotton, bandages.
It’s sleek and pretty in fluorescent light.

After they buzz around, sticking and stabbing you,
comes the part where morphine makes your voice thick. 
And I can sit on the edge of your bed, my arm across your torso,

as long as I don't swim around in the nurse's assumption
that we're something, that we're we.

__

Reader, I married him. I'm permitted to swim.