CHANGING THE BAG | Paul Shovlin
Some of you will understand the feeling just after changing the stoma bag,
when the plastic runs smoothly with clear lubricating deodorant, otherwise empty, full of potential and utility.
It reminds me of dishwashing. You can tell a dish is clean when you look at it and see your reflection staring back at you. I feel like I can see my reflection in the bag.
In an instance, everything is new and pure. The cloth backing to the bag is neat and tightly woven, unfrayed. The Velcro straps close tightly and the plastic creases at the end are hard to open and close.
My clean intestine, the hue of the cheek of a Renaissance angel is part of it, too.
Everything is in balance, almost like before.
Paul Shovlin is a former Peace Corps Volunteer who lives and teaches in southeastern Ohio. His work can be found in drunkmonkeys.us, Gramarye: The Journal of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction, and an anthology by Middle West Press of poetry on giant robots.