Sue woke up and a leg
was being sponged,
a long tan limb with unpainted toes
held up in front of her.

Whose leg is that? she asked. 
Yours, said the nurse. 

Sue closed her eyes,
never sure before where body
ended and mind began,
afraid to feel the disconnect
in the visual, a small clue
as to what might lie ahead—
hard to take departure, even one
brief absence at a time.

__

Had the chance to not recognize my own leg after surgery, but, having been warned by Sue, I chickened out, kept my eyes closed during the entire sponge bath. I was hoping to hover from the ceiling in an astral body during the operation, but that didn’t happen.