Hospital Parking Lot
Headscarf fluttering in the wind,
stockings hanging loose on her vein-roped
legs, an old woman clings to her husband
as if he were the last tree standing in a storm,
though he is not the strong one.
His skin is translucent—more like a window
than a shade. Without a shirt and coat,
we could see his lungs swell and shrink,
his heart skip. But he has offered her his arm,
and for sixty years, she has taken it.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright © 2014 by Terri Kirby Erickson, “Hospital Parking Lot,” from A Lake of Light and Clouds (Press 53, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Terri Kirby Erickson and Press 53.