Beavers and woodpeckers gnaw and nose into my bones and fire trickles up my leg like ants crawling, but I understand the needling in my foot only when the nurse with the blue mask and the mandala surgical cap nudges me into taking pills that shoo the animals away.
The nurse presses buttons and the shrieking machines settle into the frantic ticking of my heartbeat.
The beavers follow me home. Pain bites, envelops, swallows my foot like a razored sock, like a trap. I am caught – I am frozen.
Movement is costly and rest takes place only very carefully. I turn my body so the foot can rest against the cast in new positions. I shift and turn like a rotisserie chicken seeking a modicum of comfort.
Over thirty stitches and not one area safe is from angry purple-green bruises.
I dream of goats that kick and trip and fall and break and crash and wake to a foot carefully sheltered in the cocoon of my cast.
My wounds are safe and sullen.
