April Third
This is the day he came and it was something.
Properly, the head came first. There was a little trouble
with the cord and a shoulder blade. I don’t remember
the sky at all. There and not there. The room was small.
There was some wood mixed up with the sterile. The kind
you find in schools. Perfunctory. People came and went.
Busy with lines. The stethoscopes battering their collar
bones. Why do they wear them like that? Slung
around their necks. So snaky of them. These strangers
who got to look at me down there. All along they knew
they’d walk away. C’est la vie. Toodle-oo. Down the corridor
of lime linoleum. Mottled with gray. Vintage 80s.
We were their everyday. Their baloney sandwich. Coffee
with cream and two sugars, how was your date last night.
I don’t remember pain at all. He was not and then he was.
The room was small. It held just us.
Cindy Veach is the author of Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press, Nov. 2017). Her poetry has appeared in Agni, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Journal and elsewhere. She manages fundraising programs for non-profit organizations and lives in Manchester, Massachusetts.
