Marjorie Roberts

Prognosis

I rise from my chair,
walk two paces to the desk,
grasp bunches of Kleenex from a box next to the swollen peonies.

Return to the weeping woman
who snatches a handful, her face
pinched and undisguised, disappear in clouds of tissue.

Feeling dispossessed
her tongue trips
over heavy-heartedness.

Crying comes down hard
in the healing room.

Murmurs sway the way
a bamboo flute begins
with hints of hope, ripening tendrils of spring.

Beyond raw wounds the solitary self exposed
moves awkwardly at first,
emerges on spindle legs.

Slowly a newborn lament
stirs as if a battered lamb
sees itself under the sun
undulating for the first time.