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Who

Today's poem is Who by Meg Stout. It is read by Julia Bouwsma.

Who

When we exited the car
after the late-night emergency visit,

the owl was hooting.
I brushed the hospital smell from my sleeves

and listened: hoot hoot ho-
hooo cutting through the not quite night

not quite morning air: everything ink.
The medicine that had revolted

through the center of me shivered
and spread, mollified now, like a preening lion

and you pressed the blip blip
on the key fob. Hard frost so tardy

the seasons rubbed up
against each other: fallen leaves

among thriving peppers, crickets
scraping wings under zinnias

now muted in the gloom. I was not dying,
maybe not close, but you startled

at my illness, packed my purse,
forwent sleep to drive us:

unknown to anyone we passed,
unseen by anyone

in the sleeping city—me to you
and you to me,

wheels on this paved road,
songs in this indifferent forest.