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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

TASTE OF AN EMERGENCY

by Carol Elizabeth Owens


“The [sheriff’s] dispatcher asked again why [the female caller] needed the deputy to return. ‘Honey, I'm just going to be honest with you, OK? I just thought he was cute.’.”
– CNN.com (Jul. 14, 2006)

hero,
i would savor
a moment of rescue
for the intimacy of it—
i would dial “9-1-1”
just to see if
you come.


Carol Elizabeth Owens is an attorney and counselor-at-law in Western New York (by way of Long Island and New York City). She enjoys technical and creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several print and virtual publications. Ms. Owens loves the ways in which words work when poetry allows them to come out and play. The poem "taste of an emergency" is written in a form called eintou (which is West African for "pearl," as in "pearls of wisdom").