There are so many words that could be said
+about the preparation for surgery, all those steps that led
+to that six-thirty AM call. The days of purging.
+The anxiety. The drive. My husband's gentle urging.
+That night in the Airbnb. That last shower with the Hibiclens.
+All that has faded. It's distored at the edge of the lens
+of my memory.
+ No, what remains is the two hours before:
+the being so scared that I was reduced to the barest core.
+There was nothing left of me but fear, not even a name.
+I could still drive — the fear was quiet and tame —
+I could get us to the ambulatory surgery waiting room.
+But beyond that, I was a non-person. A convict. My doom
+was in their hands.
+
Non-person? Doom? Give yourself at least some credit.
+You still had agency. You still had a choice, could have not let it
+happen. You say of travel that getting you there is their job:
+you felt the same here. You crossed the doorway and let this mob
+of nurses do theirs.
+
I
+
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
-Was the eye of the blackbird.
+Was the eye of the blackbird.
-II
+
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
-In which there are three blackbirds.
+In which there are three blackbirds.
-III
+
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
-It was a small part of the pantomime.
+It was a small part of the pantomime.
-IV
+
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
-Are one.
+Are one.
-V
+
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
-Or just after.
+Or just after.
-VI
+
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
-An indecipherable cause.
+An indecipherable cause.
-VII
+
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
-Of the women about you?
+Of the women about you?
-VIII
+
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
-In what I know.
+In what I know.
-IX
+
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
-Of one of many circles.
+Of one of many circles.
-X
+
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
-Would cry out sharply.
+Would cry out sharply.
-XI
+
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
-For blackbirds.
+For blackbirds.
-XII
+
XII
The river is moving.
-The blackbird must be flying.
+The blackbird must be flying.
-XIII
+
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
-In the cedar-limbs.
+In the cedar-limbs.
-
— Wallace Stevens