PICTURES
Morning sun, creeping
up behind charcoal hills,
brushed clouds thunderstorm gray,
sunrise pink and yellow, painting
the day’s first tapestry as I drove
to work at the hospital.
The mother watches the waiting
room clock crawl toward visiting
hours. The baby, hands twitching,
sleeps in the stroller.
I help the father, his face unshaven
and hospital pale, shuffle
from the intensive care unit
toward the drowsy child.
With shaking hand, he brushes
the silk-soft hair and whispers,
“How are you, Will? Haven’t seen you
in two weeks. You’ve grown”
He touches the baby
as if he were taking
a butterfly from the net.
Asheville Poetry Review
On the road to see Mrs. Dye,
I pass bleached buildings
in different stages of collapse.
Overnight, like fallen chimney
bricks,
her vertebrae crack.
In a chair, pushed to the side
of the nursing home hall,
her jaw hangs
like a door
on an eroded hinge.
Signs posted warn a structure
is unsafe, the windows
dilated
as her stare from the railed bed.
Layers of her history are lost
in the weathered paint. Her thoughts, remains
of a starling’s nest in a burned-out light,
blow across a ragged yard.
Iris
