Intensive Care Unit

Intensive Care Unit Regan Curtis

Your grandma’s hair is white and wispy but her hands are tough, swollen with veins and rough at the fingertips, maybe from scrubbing turnips.

Your hands are velvety and small, a pink Dora-the-Explorer Band Aid wrapped around one thumb. I’d rather crush my own thumb— or even yours— than deliver this news that will cleave your life like a guillotine.

Three breaths and two strides forward. As I open my mouth, the two of you squeeze the blood out of each other’s whitening knuckles. The familiar words slash my tongue.

You’re both silent, two mutes stunned in waiting room chairs. I wish I could say he’s in a better place now.

But what place could be better than the home clouded with turnip steam rising in the kitchen, a white wispy halo atop a wise head, and a girl’s warm kisses that heal?