Kelley Jean White
Room
In the kitchen there is only one place to put each cup. There is a single corner in the refrigerator on a single shelf where I can place my 'food' my diet soda my raisins and the yogurt you cannot eat beside the green strawberries and under your 'meds'. You play the bedside radio that moves from the BBC to NPR beneath broken plates and a lump of soil spilled from that plant you never liked, one I choose to balance the aloe's weight and kacki darkness, its soothing lost to the bulletins you send: another election poll, another fire in our almost forgotten city, another bell rung until it cracked then locked in an air conditioned box against touching. I regret the way you switched the hinges on the refrigerator door. I must walk past you to the bar that opens it. There is so little space permitted between us.
Bio
Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her most recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books). She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.