OPPORTUNITIES: FIFTEEN MINUTE CHECKS
I
Cedar waxwings
pluck berries, ballet
among holly branches.

II
Sliding under the car,
I unplug the oil pan,
blackness streams
from the hole.

III
Six goslings hide
under their mother
for warmth.

IV
Someone ties a noose
in a hospital gown,

slips from the tub’s edge.

Bishop’s House Review

RECOVERY
Six months of waiting,
you left for surgery. I hoped
you remembered the black
shell from the coast.

The next day,
I came to work,
punched your name
into the computer.

In your room, I saw
the aftermath of transplant,
bloated body, tubes, two
nurses working
to keep you stable.

You woke a few days
later to feel the shots
that kept your body
from rejecting
your new heart.
You muttered, “I won’t
be a wimp.” I stretched
your legs to work out
the soreness of the injections.

Once the monitors are off,
you can begin the long road
to walking. You have a shell
to return to the sea.

Common Journeys

WAITING FOR TRANSPLANT
Some lie, pumps pushing blood
into dying hearts, others
sit with leathered lungs,
each breath a victory.

On the television
in your room, we watch
armored tanks in Waco
ram holes into walls, hoses
pump in gas, the devoted
don masks, wait to die
while buildings burn.

The machine by your bed
keeps time. . . 120 beats
per minute.

Common Journeys

TRANSPLANT
ROOM 3216, DUKE HOSPITAL

We did not choose to meet,
two women both forty–that’s all
we have in common.

Each day, I bring news from the outside,
my dog is better, I saw a yellow warbler.
Taped to the wall are handwritten notes
from your sixth grade class,
your son’s crayon picture
of your family.

In rounds, I comment
on your increasing heart rate,
pray your mind
can keep your heart beating
until a donor is found.

I promise to bring you
black raspberries
full of the sun.

Common Journeys

NORTH POND, PEA ISLAND

Smooth, cold
a stone skips
the pond’s silk.
Riffles weave
outward. Gravity catches
the rock. When it’s pulled
to the depths, no circles
mark its passing.

Wellspring

THE CATBIRD SANG
and mewed from the weeping
cherry for its mate who lies
on the trimmed Bermuda.
Its tiny body lay beneath
the raspberries, black cap,
wing slate gray, feathers
dribbled with red.

The catbird sang
until dark.

Wellspring

EYES
*
In hurricane season, the spotter
plane flies through the turbulence
into the eye. Stop signs snap
in the wind, the porch hammock
twists on eye hooks.

Seed potatoes sprout in the basement.
each pale eye must grow
from a cube of the mother
until the tendril breaks the earth

**
Her parents shake her shoulder,
call her name. When her head is still,
closed eyes roam underneath their lids.
When her eyes slit open
they think she is waking up.

She stares ahead; but does not focus.
Even the therapist thinks
she is tracking his finger;
but her pupils,
narrow columns of black,
stare into beyond.

Margie Review

SISTERS
Shouldn’t of gone to bed last night.
Elvena was hurting
in her chest and stomach.
I gave her one of my nitro tablets.

Wrapped in my blankets, I didn’t hear
her. Don’t know what woke me early.
Must have missed hearing her shift in bed.
Found her just as she was,
tried to find her pulse but she was cold.
Should’ve stayed up.

Called EMS. Wasn’t long before I heard
sirens, lights knifing through the curtains.
In the doorway, I leaned on my walker
as the medics tried to revive her.
Should’ve stayed up.

Don’t know what plans
are being made for me now.
Shouldn’t of gone to bed last night.

Shouldn’t of gone to bed last night.

Margie Review

BIOPSY
As we drive the back road
to the hospital, redbuds swell
to blossom. On this day
of your surgery, flowers
stage themselves against
the gray-rain sky.

Tree-eating mowers shred
the greening branches
as the surgeon will slice
cells from your breast.

Flower by flower,
magenta falls from slashed limbs,
covering the road’s shoulder.
Section by section,
cells cover the slides,
the pathologist will render
a judgement.

On the wounded boughs,
the remaining leaves
begin to mend
the damage
of steel.

Iris

GO TO SLEEP
Her husband offers
her favorite,
a soft boiled egg,
but she pushes
the spoon away,
chokes
on a sip of coffee.

I can’t imagine
how it is to watch
your wife die.

I’ve been here three
times before; to teach
her to get out of bed, to make
her muscles stronger.

What do you want?
She’s 93.
I can’t work miracles.

I watch him move
her from the bed
to the wheelchair.
I have no more
to show him.

He talks about
feeding tubes
or letting nature
take its course.
He still doesn’t
know what to do.

On good days,
she spends afternoons
on the deck, pushes
herself around