Swallowed the County Hospital in Omaha
To wheel up a gurney
To the room with its corpse
To carry down to the morgue
The silence
And the shadows
Punched the corners hard
I never said a word to anyone
When that phone rang I shivered
Closed the book on Marilyn Monroe
I was reading and set it on top of a Bible
I always enjoyed hearing
Orpheus & Dionysius whistle
Before they sang about sex or love
[+]
John McKernan – who grew up in Omaha Nebraska –
is now a retired comma herder after teaching
41 years at Marshall University. He lives –
mostly – in West Virginia where he edits
ABZ Press. His most recent book is a selected poems
Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems
in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review,
The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review,
The Journal, Antioch Review, Guernica, Field
and many other magazines.
