Claire Keyes The Wisdom of Crows A nurse tapes my wedding ring to my finger. So it won't come loose, she says, but I know it's something more suspect and recall my aunt in the nursing home, her rings lifted, counterfeits taking their place. And I know why the nurse wears plastic gloves before handling the syringe and taping the IV to my arm. It drips sucrose and sedative into my purged body, my curly intestine so clean the surgeon can snip a polyp like a chrysanthemum or a tulip. In the recovery room, I listen as hammers strike walls, renovating. I prop myself up and watch crows through tall windows. They glide from tree to tree, bleak couriers of survival. When this is over, I'll plant bulbs, lusty green tips piercing the rim. I'll dig deep and bury them, then pray for a long, cold winter, a thick blanket of snow.

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