A young man from Los Angeles
Shops with his boyfriend for
The first winter coat
He will ever own
They kiss under
Autumnal sycamores
Ablaze with
Becoming
And he finally
Stops running
A mother lifts her baby girl
From a hospital bed
As Pachelbel’s Canon in D
Fills the room
They dance
With the insistent beauty
Of wildflowers
Blooming
Through concrete
Two friends walk
Arm in arm
Through the December trees
Looking for the third who
Lifted herself away
The evergreens bow
To winter’s wonder
As they remember how
She painted
A therapist recalls a child
By her own name
Who thought of
All the ways she could
Kill herself and still
Be beautiful
She silently thanks the
Little girl who
Chose
Fiercely
To live
A gray-haired woman
Helps her husband into
His favorite shirt
On the last morning
Of his life
They remember their
First apartment
In Brooklyn
How the lilacs were
Beautiful
That year
A doctor reads
By lamplight
The lines on her face
Map to love like a
Compass rose
She will drift away
Believing
Unequivocally
In good.
EB Messiano is an MS4 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Image by Catherine Yang, an MS4 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
