A celebrity’s polished face assures
great care is taken to protect
those inside the magazine. Anyone can forgive
the discoloration on the floor,
or a distant flat note breaking through a door
in the pleasant yellows of the family room.
Here magazines serve two functions,
the first purely aesthetic:
to hide the chipping paint on tables.
The second is to muffle the hours
of uncertainty entombed inside
the hospital.
When you get out,
and your mother is cured, you will
remember the ad for new lipstick,
rush to the store, and thank it for showing
mercy.
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Permission to reprint granted to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc., and Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc., by copyright author/owner.
2018