sterile
NY, 1989

in the waiting room
there are brochures, posters, 
and a restless A/C
chilling the polished metal
of the folding chair decor

skin swells in goosebump
remembering the numb
of steel hooks in Mexico
used to pry life
out of Her swollen body;

and in the back alley
where a vocal car alarm 
sirens and burps,
unbent coathangers 
jostle and scrape
to retrieve
the keys
from the ignition
after the lockdown.

behind the reception's desk
all the jars full of gauze
and tissue
and hands, eyes
now inanimate
nothing.

Mary struggles back
to her fourteen colorless years,
a body lost to shiver
the months under her skirt
red with shards of vacant -
she will remember
the steel tray next to her pain,
the lamp swinging in time,
the pulse of her daughter
slowly being pulled away.


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january, 1998
© denise angela celeste