Kathleen Winter

The MRI tech said

that in the ceiling’s lightbox photograph of sky,
some of our patients see the clouds move.
That’s why they’re here.
A beautiful tree jumped up the road
which we all felt we needed;
a versatile, energetic terrier rooted in our featherbed
for a lost offer, but I was under pressure
from the ER’s chilly white robotic cuff,
puffing every quarter hour, timely
yet abrupt.
I can’t tell you what’s wrong with me.
I don’t know except a feather, white,
stabbed into my blues. As though a tiny bird sped
through the fleece sleeve, leaving its tinier tail.
In the MRI’s sporadic din I heard OhnoOhnoOhnoOhno
& verses worthy of the furthest avant garde, my left
hand gripping at my ribs a plastic bulb
to call the tech to end it—but I never did.
Coming out, life was half a day later.
Dark filled up our little downtown
but the air was perfect for the dog to lie outside
waiting for tires to spark gravel, waiting
for the next surprise.

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Kathleen Winter  is the author of two poetry collections, I will not kick my friends (Elixir 2018), which won the Elixir Poetry Prize, and Nostalgia for the Criminal Past, winner of the 2013 Texas Institute of Letters Bob Bush Memorial Award. She teaches at Sonoma State University in Northern California.