Kelly Fordon: In the Surgeon’s Office
In the Surgeon’s Office
The windows in the surgeon’s office
were too high to apprehend
anything, but an American flag
trembling in the wind, and the top
of one lone tree. Waiting,
I stared at the tree and the flag
for what seemed like a century,
so long that I began to wonder
how I’d survive if I were locked
in that sterile cell forever.
Perhaps trying to name the tree
would slowly drive me mad.
Would the flag ever offer solace?
Then suddenly a tiny white line
appeared in the sky and made its way
slowly across the bank of windows.
I imagined people on board
drinking Coca Cola, and scarfing
down Planter’s peanuts. Happy
or sad or petrified, precious cargo
borne from one mysterious
location to another, gliding past me
oblivious to my plight. I held up
my finger, so that the plane
appeared balanced on the tip.
Kelly Fordon’s work has appeared in The Florida Review, The Kenyon Review (KRO), Rattle and various other journals. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks. The first one, On the Street Where We Live, won the 2012 Standing Rock Chapbook Award and the latest one, The Witness, won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for the Chapbook and was shortlisted for the Grand Prize. Her novel-in-stories, Garden for the Blind, was chosen as a Michigan Notable Book, a 2016 Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, an Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist in the short story category. She works for the Inside Out Literary Arts Project in Detroit. www.kellyfordon.com