Carolyn Adams

Red Poppies

Once in the pit of a late afternoon,
my father lay in a room, alone.
A small machine,
its tubes and cables delicate as fish bones,
encircled his failing body.
Its hum could be called
a comfort.

Now I’m with my father.
Amber glyphs shimmer on a black screen.
Women in white shoes
hush in and out of the room,
sweep the long blue curtain closed,
remove a table.
A man with a kind face
turns and hands me a clipboard
with a paper on it I can’t read.
I’m given a pen.

In the hallway, two boys laugh softly
as they ride their wheeled shoes
to the vending machine
in a further wing.

My brother sits quietly beside me.
We’re in large chairs
at a small desk
in a corner office.
My mother is nearby, immobile.
The three of us are
a broken triangle.
Sunset splashes from a window
to coat all the surfaces
in the room,
and I am about to sign
my name on the paper.
I don’t want to,
because it is a mountain
I don’t want to climb.
But I do it.

A slow retreat of needles,
switches closed, circuitry shut down.

As we leave, a receptionist
hands me a fistful of
red poppies. I hand them back.
I don’t want to claim the stain
of their bloody fire.