If you\u2019ve been in a hospital, and got out alive, you\u2019re really alive. In this poem, Anya Silver, who lives in Georgia, celebrates just such an escape.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Leaving the Hospital<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n As the doors glide shut behind me,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n the world flares back into being\u2014<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I exist again, recover myself,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n sunlight undimmed by dark panes,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n the heat on my arms the earth\u2019s breath.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The wind tongues me to my feet<\/p>\n<\/p>\n like a doe licking clean her newborn fawn.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n At my back, days measured by vital signs,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n my mouth opened and arm extended,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n the nighttime cries of a man withered<\/p>\n<\/p>\n child-size by cancer, and the bells<\/p>\n<\/p>\n of emptied IVs tolling through hallways.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Before me, life\u2014mysterious, ordinary\u2014<\/p>\n<\/p>\n holding off pain with its muscular wings.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As I step to the curb, an orange moth<\/p>\n<\/p>\n dives into the basket of roses<\/p>\n<\/p>\n that lately stood on my sickroom table,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n and the petals yield to its persistent<\/p>\n<\/p>\n nudge, opening manifold and golden.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n