It is dark in your hospital room and you are asleep.
The blinds let in the image of the mountains chopped into
rows. Your eyes closed. When you open them,
they are so blue. So previous. Your hand can’t hold
anything. I hold your hand. I want to pull you into now.
Brown-red leaves scatter in the parking lot outside.
A horned owl hoots at three a.m. under the streetlight,
and night is drawn like dead eyes onto dawn.
I carry you, a precious wise doll, to the smooth
rocks by dark water, and we watch the late sunrise.
When we return to your room, they give you morphine.
I have visions of your visions: glassy waterfalls that flow
upward to the ceiling. Trees drop leaves, birds fly away.
Small in your discarded bed, your leaving is silent and subtle:
a duck soothing into black water. Why not
rest on a mossy crown of rocks by the otters?
Everything holds its breath, the owl’s cries fill your bones.
–
Lynn Finger’s writings have appeared in 8Poems, perhappened, Book of Matches, Fairy Piece, Drunk Monkeys, and ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry. Lynn also has a poetry chapbook released this year, The Truth of Blue Horses, published by Alien Buddha Press. She was nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology in 2021 and 2022. Lynn edits Harpy Hybrid Review and works with a group that mentors writers in prison. Her Twitter is @sweetfirefly2.