Pre-op, 5:30 AM
Iodine, gauze: daybreak
on a bloodless, sunless
morning. Ochre, white. Mourning,
cardiac catheters empty
arteries, fourteen people taking turns
speaking to that confessional
priest, your hospital bed
at rest, wrists also turned
up, naked, yellow
but not without courage. You
are going home, your car scrapes
over snow, warmth
vents off the engine, soft
on your skin, and snow
swerves out of the dark
up the windshield
and into your heart—
About Morgan Hamill
Morgan Hamill is a graduate fellow at Penn State-University Park. Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, The Georgia Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
Pre-op, 5:30 AM
Iodine, gauze: daybreak
on a bloodless, sunless
morning. Ochre, white. Mourning,
cardiac catheters empty
arteries, fourteen people taking turns
speaking to that confessional
priest, your hospital bed
at rest, wrists also turned
up, naked, yellow
but not without courage. You
are going home, your car scrapes
over snow, warmth
vents off the engine, soft
on your skin, and snow
swerves out of the dark
up the windshield
and into your heart—
Pre-op, 5:30 AM
Iodine, gauze: daybreak
on a bloodless, sunless
morning. Ochre, white. Mourning,
cardiac catheters empty
arteries, fourteen people taking turns
speaking to that confessional
priest, your hospital bed
at rest, wrists also turned
up, naked, yellow
but not without courage. You
are going home, your car scrapes
over snow, warmth
vents off the engine, soft
on your skin, and snow
swerves out of the dark
up the windshield
and into your heart—
About Morgan Hamill
Morgan Hamill is a graduate fellow at Penn State-University Park. Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, The Georgia Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
