In a Private Room

Visitors may not notice
that the windows in her room 
                are sealed shut
so the air is spent, used up 
days ago, and they’re not there 
later to hear the coursing
               of an underground river 
through her pillow
that stops as she rolls over.

She must have been asleep 
when the flowers arrived.
                A shock of red
in a disinfected room—tulips 
already drooping
in a vase. They have had
             their allotment—fewer days 
than fingers on a hand,
but no one here will give 
her estimates. Futile to ask.

               When the fading light
takes the room with it, nothing more 
can be added to the day.
She must take what’s given.
                Inhaling the dark, she makes it 
part of her, makes peace with her enemy. 
Others might dream of flying,
              but all night she is trying
to run ashore through waist-high water 
and gets no closer.

Read more from Issue 15.1.