What's near a Norwegian Hospital

There’s a mother in a Norway
lying face down in a hospital bed.
Her son spins a brass ring
around her swollen finger
causing a clear fluid to seep from under
her yellowing finger nails.
Doctors come in and out
of a door creaking in its hinges,
scribbling on pads of off-white paper.
One mumbles something blanketed in vowels.
One says “Mother…swelling, liver….”
and walks out, digging through his pocket
for a tongue depressor.

The son walks to the window and tugs at a cord.
There is a field on the western edge of the hospital
surrounded by a long whitewashed fence.
He thinks about how this looks like American farm
and how bad he wants his mother to die in her sleep,
instead of facedown with her mouth filled
with pillowcase.

He tries to look past branches covered
in a mossy filth so he can count the spots on a bird’s eggs.
Bird’s egg spots, the color of his mother’s skin.
Texture of a reptile. His stomach felt uneasy,
like how those baby birds will feel with their
feet perched on the soiled green branches,
pumping blood into their wings for the first time.