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.