Kelly Fordon: In the Surgeon’s Office

 In the Surgeon’s Office

The windows in the surgeon’s office

were too high to apprehend

anything, but an American flag

trembling in the wind, and the top

of one lone tree. Waiting,

I stared at the tree and the flag

for what seemed like a century,

so long that I began to wonder

how I’d survive if I were locked

in that sterile cell forever.

Perhaps trying to name the tree

would slowly drive me mad.

Would the flag ever offer solace?

Then suddenly a tiny white line

appeared in the sky and made its way

slowly across the bank of windows.

I imagined people on board

drinking Coca Cola, and scarfing

down Planter’s peanuts. Happy

or sad or petrified, precious cargo

borne from one mysterious

location to another, gliding past me

oblivious to my plight. I held up

my finger, so that the plane

appeared balanced on the tip.

---

Kelly Fordon’s work has appeared in The Florida Review, The Kenyon Review (KRO), Rattle and various other journals. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks. The first one, On the Street Where We Live, won the 2012 Standing Rock Chapbook Award and the latest one, The Witness, won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for the Chapbook and was shortlisted for the Grand Prize. Her novel-in-stories, Garden for the Blind, was chosen as a Michigan Notable Book, a 2016 Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, an Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist in the short story category. She works for the Inside Out Literary Arts Project in Detroit. www.kellyfordon.com