Rachel Alt

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Beat

Why should this thin green stem
Prop your life upright
And feed the purple petals
That bloom around your eyes?

I knew every word
Until the hospital
Stole my precious adjectives
So nothing now can be bloodred.

Not even the heart that oozes
From the corner of your mouth
Where jagged white teeth beg for
The iron-fist brute who tore you
Plump and ripe
From the ground.

Rachel Alt lives in northern California with her husband and dog. Until she became too ill to continue, she worked for many years as an emergency physician. She is now quietly reorienting, or maybe dramatically growing, her life.