Vivian Wagner
Pre-Op
You’re on a gurney,
prepped, feet under a blanket
warmed with energy that
might or might not be
the sun’s, and through
you I see my mother,
also on a hospital bed,
feet beneath blanket,
waiting, as we all are,
to wheel away.
Vivian Wagner lives in New Concord, Ohio, where she’s an associate professor of English at Muskingum University.