The Zoo Was Nearby

POETRY

by Renee Emerson

I like a place where all dangers
are labeled and fenced,
ditch and wire between us.

So I took my other children there
on a day where shifting my daughter
from her bed to my lap made her
numbers dip too close to death.

I bought them rides on the carousel,
balloons, and blue Icees. We stayed
as long as they wanted while their sister slept,

deftly wrapped by nurses, morphine,
the gentle machinery of the ICU
pressing her lungs open again and again
as the painted animals moved up and down.

Request

POETRY

by Renee Emerson

The wind has blown your flowers away,
awkward geese, left months too late.

They were fake, to last longer—
a horrible sight the dead with dead

flowers. The ground keepers netted them
floating in the half-frozen reflecting pool,

offered us fresh apologies, a new bouquet
in the spring style. Let them be silk, full,

sunshine yellow, like your uneaten Easter
candy, your unworn Easter dress.