Poetry – Page 17 – PLEASE SEE ME

Reverse Transcription—Elizabeth Tomanio

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Reverse Transcription by Elizabeth Tomanio Reverse Transcription With my mouth covered, half my face is lost, unknown. The lines around my mouth, indicating a polite or genuine smile, are disguised by light blue, creased lines. I lose definition. Only my eyes remain. A deaf man panics, as I repeat the sweep of my hand over his forehead. My lips are not visible to read. An expectant mother arrives scheduled for induced labor, holding an empty car seat. An exception is made for end of life. A brother and sister prepare to see their father for ...

Memory Care—Rebecca Ramsden

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Memory Care by Rebecca Ramsden Memory Care Almost 60 years she has walked up the stairs with her husband. Hand in hand, they say a prayer before snuggling in for the night. Where is he now? She cannot understand, why this strange room, metal bed for only one, why seclusion, isolation. Masked people in paper gowns, colored gloves say her name, but they do not know her. The her when she was in command, family hostess of huge holiday dinner ...

COVID-19: A Retelling of Now—Brittany Mosley

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 COVID-19: A Retelling of Now by Brittany Mosley COVID-19: A Retelling of Now The one about home I wake up solely by the light of sunrise because I can’t afford blinds. The furniture in my house has a past life that I can only glean from the areas where the seats sag and the edges fray. It’s student life in an apartment not big enough to have the toaster in the kitchen (it’s on the living room ...

The Daily Count of Lives—David Mellor

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 The Daily Count of Lives by David Mellor The Daily Count of Lives 746 (six fell in love more than four times) 673 (twenty had no regrets) 714 (five could still feel their first kiss) 643 (twenty-seven looked at photos of their loved one each morning) 547 (seven had contagious laughter) 517 (one hundred regretted that their beauty had faded) 468 (thirty-five had worked in the same job all their lives) 573 ...

A Resident’s Obligation—Ajibike Lapite

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 A Resident’s Obligation by Ajibike Lapite A Resident’s Obligation 1 || our lives before the virus: we slipped into the hospital before six +++in the morning; bought our first cup of coffee; sailed into work +++rooms and anchored ourselves to desks; we talked about patients +++and numbers and pathophysiology; we danced our way into patient +++rooms when they were asleep; we slipped our stethoscopes under the +++covers and heard the music of ...

My (Pet) Corona—William Blackburn

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 My (Pet) Corona by William Blackburn My (Pet) Corona —A message to our new friend Lean-to shanty roadside snack bar Butcher house of unusual tastes From those wet works you crawled Traded false hopes for troubled wheezing The gagging sneezing, dry heaving of the lungs Weeping eyes, and at times a final rest Fear abounding is nothing novel Crackdown, shakedown of the poorer classes Rooms as coffins dimly lit and jam-packed In these turgid times your labors ...

Three Poems—Paul Hostovsky

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Three Poems by Paul Hostovsky Granted You took it for granted because it was. All of it. Every single swallow required the work of more than thirty muscles you didn’t know you had, much less that they have names, names you’re absorbing as you learn how to swallow all over again. And to speak— almost a hundred muscles involved in the act of speaking, says the speech therapist, who visits your room daily in your recovery. ...

PPE—Warren Paul Glover

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 PPE by Warren Paul Glover PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) Without it I play a game of Russian roulette except this gun has more bullets and my death, when it comes, will be slow and painful; a tragic treason behind the reason I came into this job in the first place: with a desire, a want, a need, to help others. Some call it a vocation. I may leave this job for the same reason; I ...

Those Unknown People of the Pandemic—Siyun Fang

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Those Unknown People of the Pandemic by Siyun Fang Those Unknown People of the Pandemic That person who sat at his balcony, beating a gong to inform people that he had been infected. That person who ran after a hearse at midnight, crying with grief, yelling out, “It’s my mom.” That person who read The Origins of Political Order in the quarantine hospital where he had to share the ...

Six Feet Apart—Brenna Cameron

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Six Feet Apart by Brenna Cameron Six Feet Apart The moon swells in a dark velvet sky. Stars glit and gleam. A blip of blinking lights goes by. “First plane I’ve seen in weeks.” Our shoes pad the pavement— my mother and I. Her chest heaves, like a plucked violin string, its exhale drowned in the coos of lullabies tangled in nearby trees. “The test was negative,” she told me days ago, though her doctor suspects it’s wrong. Our ...