By LindaAnn LoSchiavo
The hospice nurse returns my call today.
I sneak the phone outside, hear bright bird sounds,
Malignancy obscured from this angle.
The noonday sun in Florida’s fishbowl
Is cooler than my mother’s room. Heat clings,
Perpetually pumped to Dantean
Heights by hard-working oxygenators.
Snores greet my cautious footsteps triggering
Childhood fancies: radiators’ hot breath
Protecting us from fairytales of snow
Decades before deep damage came to town.
Chores play on loop as mighty machines beep,
My mouth making promises I can’t keep.
Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a four time nominee for The Pushcart Prize, has also been nominated for Best of the Net, the Rhysling Award, and Dwarf Stars. Elgin Award winner “A Route Obscure and Lonely” (Wapshott, 2019), “Women Who Were Warned” (Cerasus, 2022), IPPY Award nominee “Messengers of the Macabre” (Audience Askew, 2022), “Apprenticed to the Night” (UniVerse Press, 2023], and “Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide” (Ukiyoto, 2023) are her latest poetry titles. She is a member of SFPA, The British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild.
Hot Pot Magazine 