anniversary

The view from the hospital bed looks different after surgery. The monitors and IV bags and pain pumps and the buttons to call the nurse like playthings, gadgetry, toys. The window holds a view of green, a slice of sky. Her sister is crumpled into the pullout lounger, still sleeping. The room is silent, and she lifts her head carefully from the pillow to see if the movement will jar anything from her back, where between her 6th and 7th vertebrae a three-inch track of staples has taken up temporary residence. There is a pull, certainly, and now, awake, it expands into a throb. She returns her head to the pillow, lifts each hand from the mattress, clenches the first, turns her ankles and wiggles her toes. There is sensation everywhere, unmistakable, irrefutable. Outside, she is sure of it, birds are happening on the new day. She watches her own chest rise and fall with each breath, and counts them one by one until her sister wakes when the new nurse comes to take the morning measurements. She is certain she’s never been happier than this. But there is a new beginning to everything now, even happiness.