by Cathy McArthur
Today I’ll sleep– comforter, flowered
nightgown—dark beneath.
At the hospital, three interns
lifted sheets and peered inside me.
One said, “incomplete;” I didn’t think
it could be me, but covered
myself with a sheet under the overhead light.
Before then, alone, I tossed lingerie
in the sink, the water ran around
with a red flag wave.
Outside my room the trees
were filled with small birds
and somewhere inside, a voice on the line
said over and out. Something died,
small plant in a hole, a ditch.
Something else unraveled, threads,
a roll of tissue or the newspaper—
something else was wrapped up.
Tuck me in and hold me like a child.
Now that you’re at home with me
please stay.
Cathy McArthur (aka, Cathy Palermo) has work forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review. Her work recently appeared in The Mom Egg Review, Cordella, Bowery Gothic, and Drunk Monkeys. In addition to her previous poems in the Big City Lit, and The Bellevue Literary Review (in print and online), her work has also appeared in The Rumpus, Juked, The Whale Road Review, Barrow Street, Hanging Loose, Gargoyle, Lumina, Jacket, and The Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others.
Cathy has taught creative writing and composition as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at The City College of New York, and poetry and prose to adults and teenagers at LaGuardia Community College, The PS1Arts Museum, and The Lighthouse for the Blind.