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Fall/Winter 2017



Brian Daldorph

TERMINAL

“It’s something you won’t recover from,”
my doctor says.  “I’m so sorry.”
I sit alone in my room

in the hospital (I call it my room)
thinking about quitting my job: not easy
living with what I won’t recover from.

Just a few friends left but it’s not the same,
they don’t know what to say, “We’re all so so sorry.”
I sit alone in my room

listening to Vivaldi, trying to write a poem
to make myself feel better, two words, three,
I’ll call it, “What I won’t recover from.”

I’d like to call my ex-wife, Pam,
“Look what you did to me!”
But I sit alone in my room

counting down to pill time:
“These will take the edge off things.  Don’t worry.”
All I am is what I won’t recover from,
sitting all alone in my room.

 


Brian Daldorph, Ph.D., teaches creative writing at the University of Kansas and the Douglas County Jail. He is the editor of the literary journal, Coal City Review. His most recent books of poetry are From the Inside Out: Sonnets and Jail Time.

 


 

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