Scraping.

I scrape.
I turn it over.
I scrape some more.
I find another angle of light.
I realize I'm sitting sideways in my chair again.
Legs crossed, shoulders hunched.
I scrape.
I switch, from a plastic spoon to a toothbrush,
Improvised tools for something resembling an artist.
I worry the edges more.
Carve a little more off the left.
It's still all wrong, but better than starting over,
I remember to relax my shoulders again.
I deepen the spaces between the fingers,
Hollow out the arch of the foot a little more.
I look up and realize another hour has gone by,
I know I have other things to do,
Something else to think about, but I
Just want to finish this.
This one thing.
A small thing, just hands and feet in plaster
A crooked heart shape and some pastel acrylic paint
I can glue a flower over the part that broke off,
I was never any good at arts and crafts.
I scrape.
My mind is thankfully consumed with this task
Not with the antibiotic I should be giving,
Not with the charting I should be doing,
But with scraping.
Rubbing away chunks of plaster to
Just.
Make.
It.
Right.
This, a small thing but so important,
Maybe the only evidence this woman will ever have that she was a mother.
That her baby, her pregnancy ever existed and ever meant anything
To anyone but her.
If this is all she will have left,
Of hope, of love,
Of the precious little girl she always wanted.
I want it to be perfect.
Or at least not quite so very wrong.
I scrape.
I keep chewing down the edges, this way and that and
Another hour has gone by before I realize
This isn't as much for her as it is for me.
As I can't bear to feel helpless
I need something, anything will do.
As if I could hold this ridiculous tiny tchotchke up
Against her litany of tragedies
As if pink-painted hands and feet could somehow soothe a
Broken, broken soul.
I scrape furiously
As if it would make a difference.

I spray a gloss over my artwork
(how appropriate.)
A child's work at best,
I lettered a lost name and date on the back,
Thinking as I did that maybe
Maybe she would see how much time and love I spent
Scraping.
And think for an instant that someone cared enough
To see that she had something nice
If it could be called nice
In a terrible storm of a world.
That it wouldn't be patronizing or pitiful
But somehow help a little

As we both move on.