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Just Before the Dawning
by Helen Losse
We are no longer required to enter in shifts,
so we congregate in Clara's room.
Having left holiday plans—
even December's bell ringers
with their hungry red cauldrons—
and shed ourselves of meaning-
less baggage—keeping only a book
of puzzles and a useless, blue umbrella—
we remember last night's storm:
the slicing wind, the freezing rain, my
two gloved hands holding hat to head, coat
to shivering torso.
The nurse speaks in staccato whispers,
fingers several strands of blood-soaked hair.
We remember ice hitting glass.
Helen Losse is a poet, free lance writer, and Poetry Co-Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Her recent poetry publications include Mastodon Dentist, Right Hand Pointing, Blue Fifth Review, Southern Hum, Adagio Verse Quarterly, The Centrifugal Eye, The Blueprint: An Assemblage of the Fifth Element, ForPoetry, and Scorched Earth. She has a chapbook, Gathering the Broken Pieces, available from FootHills Publishing http://foothillspublishing.com/id43.htm. Her second chapbook, Paper Snowflakes, is forthcoming from Southern Hum Press.
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