FICTION
Amy Schutzer is a Jewish, lesbian, feminist poet and fiction writer. She writes about the subtleties and sharpness of landscapes; not just the geological land but the landscape of the body. Her work has appeared in a variety of literary reviews and magazines including Portland Review, Feminist Broadcast Quarterly, Sequoia and Common Lives/Lesbian Lives. She lives in community on Women's Land in Oregon.
Excerpted from What Version of the Truth Do We Tell?
Three days after I fell, I woke with Macy's fingers in my hair. They combed and combed. I did not open my eyes. She touched my skin like a rose petal. Her fingers smooth on my forehead, my cheeks, the curve of my chin. I did not ask her why. I did not ask her how or where. I did not want her to stop. I wanted her there. She came to my room the next day and read my chart, the vital signs that defined my. Sitting in the peach vinyl chair by my bed.
"Improving," she said. "You'll be dancing in no time." But she didn't laugh or even smile. Her eyes rose up from the numbers in my chart and settled a humid look on my. Eye lids lowering like shades being drawn in a bedroom where someone is naked and waiting.
I said, "Did Gena hear from the insurance company?" I talked to the left of Macy's eyes, could not look right in them, they were charms and lures.
"Yes, Gena talked to the insurance company," Macy said. She stood up and here eyes went back to being nurse's eyes, glancing at the I.V., she tapped the long tube, followed the liquids down to my hand, touched the bandage that covered the needles. She slipped here hand under mine and lifted it. Palm against palm. The morphine sweetened everything. A powdery sugar. I floated in her palm, an hour, a minute, a second.