Poems by Claire Scott

SPACE JUNK

    Collision risks are growing every year
                  as the number of objects in orbit
                  around Earth proliferate.
                                    —CNN 

How can prayers make it through
130 million pieces of space junk
careening and colliding
at 18,000 miles per hour
in an orbital graveyard
bits of broken satellites,
the remains of booster rockets
and wreckage from weapons tests

As violence spreads like head lice
more and more prayers swirl the skies
jostling and jiggling to make it to heaven
and petition the Lord
please one night without sirens
                  wailing us awake
let my daughter learn to walk
                  on her wooden leg
prayers crashing into each other
smoldering in the atmosphere
or plummeting to earth unheard
while angels wait by an empty gate
weeping into feathered wings

PHLEBOTOMIST

In that vial
on that day
held in that young girl’s
trembling hand
the girl feeling first life
smiling secretly
despite bruised eyes of exhaustion
knowing the treatment worked
that her life just took a turn
that would change it forever
no idea that that vial of blood
held in her fluttering hand
was from a woman
who hikes five miles a day
and takes her grandkids to the Galapagos
to see the giant tortoises
teaching them about preserving
the priceless living laboratory
that the girl lazily labels the tubes
and places them on a tray
dreaming of mobiles and lullabies
no idea that the white cell count
in that vial leaning crookedly
to the left would mean lymphoma
that that woman’s life
just took a turn
that would change it forever

WHO AM I?

Am I a grown-up or a child
the nurse calls me sweetie
and dearie but she is at least
forty years younger
the nurse says now
we will put on a gown
will she join me in this size XL
faded flowered gown
with an open back, broken ties
and plenty of room for two
do we need to use the bathroom
she asks as though I was
a recently toilet-trained
two-year-old

Am I a person or a patient
I need to tattoo my birthdate
on my forehead or press a button
on my phone to sing an off key
happy birthday and announce
9-25-43 which is on every one
of their useless charts
doctors whisper above me
ghostly murmurs of “maybe metastasized”
“complications” and “chemotherapy”
surely about a patient down the hall
certainly not me, healthy as a hound

I want to slide into my well-worn jeans
and walk out of this white room
where everything stinks of sterile
and there is a steady beeping
that fries my already fried nerves
I want to drink vodka tonics
and share stories with my friends
I want sleep in my own bed
on my own soft pillow
and be a grown-up person again