Thrush Poetry Journal
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Caroline Pittman
​

Readmission to the Children’s Hospital
 
We go up in the elevator
with the giant dahlia
on the door, the one
we came down in
this morning toward
our car. I sip a styrofoam
cup beside the bed
and watch sparrows
caper on the helipad
through unopenable
windows. I think of
Demeter in winter
while Persephone
pays Hades in months
of her year, the zinnias
frosted, the maples slick,
the unfragrant sleet, the lost
season, but their pomegranate
was a merciful fruit,
exacting only a stint,
a limited visit. I want
to collar the oncology fellow
to quarter one and give us
the pieces, each bloody seed
numbered, each imbedded tear
another gone from a palm-
sized allocation, and
circumscribed by a unified,
sunrise-colored rind.
I can’t grasp myths
of abundance anymore,
a daughter returned
for certain, summer
after summer.




Caroline Pittman was born in Mississippi, grew up in Alabama, and is now raising her 4 children in Atlanta. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Witness, Crab Orchard Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.




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