Conversation with Patient in Room 314

Nadine Ellsworth-Moran

I stare outside his window,
the sky is wet grey lint
draped over A/C units.

The moment cracks
beneath his question,
Is he real, or is he a lie?
I say what I imagine he expects.

But there is more—

in the spring, he runs with the wild horses along the Chincoteague
careening with the herd as hooves pound and nostrils flare.

He glides in with the gulls that circle the garbage heaps
where children pick through rubbish with bare hands looking for food.

When the summer heat rises and the cicadas sing,
he is in the hidden choir pulsing in vibrato.

He is the burning wick of the novena candle,
the soot that clings to the glass in black streaks.

There, in the prick of the IV and pull of blood,
in every shuffling footstep down this antiseptic hallway,

and there in breaths so deep they ache in your bones
as if from a wounding long healed.

Nadine Ellsworth-Moran
Poet & Pastor

Photography by Aron Yigin

Ekstasis Magazine