Clinic Hours, After Rain
The fluorescent hum remembers the night shift:
a blue ribbon of light between the blinds.
At the sink, the nurse hums an old hymn
and folds the bandages like quiet questions.
A man with rain in his shoes tells me his mother
left recipes in handwriting like small flags.
I trace the loops, the way grief becomes a list:
peel the potato thin, sleep on the left side.
Outside, the neighborhood smells of wet asphalt
and the bakery’s oven practicing patience.
We map our small losses on the whiteboard:
one fever, two missed buses, a daughter named June.
The EKG takes a breath and keeps time.
Someone from triage brings coffee in a chipped mug.
The city resettles itself, small and serious,
as if a long poem were only a careful ledger.
Later, a child will sleep in the elbow of a coat,
and rain will write letters on every window.
I leave my keys on the counter like an offering
and learn the exact, slow language of being present.
Ouroboros at the Kitchen Table
We keep the snake in the center of the table,
a loop of voices folded back upon itself.
It eats the end of the sandwich as if time
were small and edible, a crust of yesterday.
My grandmother said: hunger is a compass.
She ironed the same shirt until the sun believed
the seams were straight. She braided stories in her apron,
kept lists like charms: do not trust sudden quiet.
Tonight, the faucet stutters. Outside, the moon
is a coin someone forgot to spend. In the bowl,
half a lemon bobs like a reluctant planet.
We speak of old debts in the tone of weather reports.
A child draws strings from the sink and names them:
Mercy, the last train, the promise of rain.
The snake eats its tail and becomes a question mark:
one continuous hush, a small comet going home.
We answer with recipes, with laundry, with prayers
for no one in particular and everyone in need.
At dawn, the snake will be a napkin folded
and the kitchen will smell of bread and forgiveness.
Three Small Things I Carry
A coin with the face rubbed off: an old sun.
A hospital bracelet that says: HOLD FAST.
A pressed violet, as thin as memory.
They fit in a palm like quiet contraband,
weights that keep me down enough to sleep.
Pinball, or How the City Learns Its Edges
The alley knows the names of fools and saints.
A microwave hums like a prophet in the corner store.
On Tuesday, a man learns to count to ten
with the rhythm of jingle bells in his pockets.
He bets his last dime on a pinball
and watches the silver heartbeat leap and fall.
A dog naps on a pile of flyers,
a child spells sunset on the stoop,
and the laundromat counts its own slow blessings:
one dryer, two coins, three socks without partners.
We are a map stitched from small betrayals:
a lost glove, a repaired window, a letter never sent.
Someone sets down a cup of tea on a radiator,
and the steam writes the names of who will remain.
The pinball flings back: bump, clink, that bright clatter;
and the man laughs like a key turning in a rusted lock.
He walks home through a city that has learned
to keep its wounds private and its lamps on.
Sequence: Four Doors
i. Front Door
The paint peels like a memory.
A shoe sits in the hallway: an unlabeled guest.
I open it, and the house breathes in a key.
ii. Middle Door
Between the rooms we keep the small silences,
the calendars with red Xs, the coffee grounds of mornings.
A photograph leans forward like an invitation.
iii. Back Door
The yard remembers the cat who refused to leave.
It buried its secrets under the lilac.
A child hides there, counting to nothing.
iv. Last Door
This one opens on a light I barely recognize:
the kind that asks nothing in return.
I leave it slightly ajar, a handwave for tomorrow.
*****
D Anson Lee is a physician, philosopher, and poet originally from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, currently based in Texas. His work explores themes of memory, daily life, myth, and the intersections of human experience, often blending lyrical clarity with narrative depth. His poems have appeared in journals including Right Hand Pointing, Unbroken Journal, The Scarred Tree, and Braided Way.
