A two-roomed vestigial, sandwiched between giants: the house she didn't want to leave, with its wooden screen door, torn mesh flapping, its lime green linoleum pieced together under years'- worn braided rag rugs, plastic sheeting tacked over her windows'
view of poured concrete glass; where she sat upright, behind the bedroom door, waiting for evening to issue her daughter home to cook their meal on a cast-iron stove (the type now back in fashion), her elephant feet spilling over loosely knitted slippers, her gravelly voice propelled by a gargoylian tongue (emerging as a dogfish from the ocean), and her facial pallor so
cold; where the home lab arrived for blood; where the internist phoned to promise a better life, with CT scans and interns and IV fluids and bromocryptine and radiotherapy and a hospital bed in a white room clad with fear.
Ruth Elwood Martin Department of Family Practice University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC