emergency ((unique chromosomes tightly wound, unwind slowly from dna)) rooms
Andrea Horowitz
audio wallpaper
ever present—
beep—
heart rate’s-slow
beep beep—
pulse-ox-low
beep beep beep—-
empty-med-bag
fear shrouds my mother—
mascara streaked
around her crow’s feet
makes her look defeated
like a knocked-out boxer
her eyelashes sticky
weep onto lifeless floors
I brace—
what comes next
wanting to
smear divine language
I dare my fingers—
defile these bricks
this room
these machines
measure her life
& rewrite mine
a shrill beep—
my mother’s lungs
still breathe &
I see the streaks
of ___________
bleach sprinting
through blue plastic tubes
that say———
caution keep away—
fire & deafening silence
I look up at the clock’s
oversized face and hands
like a nursery school’s
ceiling lights hide
behind polystyrene tiles
terrified to shine
beep
punctuates silence—
she is nothing more
than twenty three chromosomes
subdued under institutional sheets
stamped hospital corners
hold her cold feet
as if positioned
for toe tags
like John Does in the morgue
two amino actors
stage final hours
my pen scripts
her every spark seeping
into the (faint) blue lines
of my white notepaper
as if they were her veins
& atrophied grey matter
Her body like icebergs
cracks into my flesh
Andrea (Andi) Horowitz, an emerging poet who is older than she should be, is a retired High School teacher. She graduated from the University of Florida, and lives in Fort Myers with her husband and their two cairn terriers, BeCa and Bleecker.


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