Madelyn Garner

Ode to a Nursing Home

Harsh fluorescent lights stranger her     younger sister

living in back rooms of skull where time is measured

in pitchers of water delivered     and     food trays taken

here where the top sheet is scarf for her boyish hips

frayed gown slipping off bony shoulders     exposing

the alpha tattoo     blue iris blooming     on white breasts

still warm     flesh lovers once sketched     with artless

fingers     my surprise of how beautiful she is when she

wakes thumb to mouth     beatific smile.

Recent winner of The Western Humanities Review Poetry Prize, and runner-up for the Humboldt Prize, Florida Review, Madelyn Garner’s writing has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review, Laurel Review, Sand Hills, Salamander, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Tar River, Pembroke Magazine, The Pinch, and Southern Indiana Review, among others.  She is the co-editor of the poetry anthology, Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined.  Her debut poetry manuscript, Hum of Our Blood, winner of Tupelo/3: A Taos Press July Open, was published in 2017.