MRI

by Robin Wright

"Breathe in breathe out" poster  by Raphaella Vaisseau

A voice summons from somewhere outside this tube.

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold your breath

 

No way to say I’ve been doing just that

ever since Putin invaded Ukraine.

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold your breath

 

I study gray tape on the ceiling, a few inches

from my face. It’s long and straight, a runway, but

no planes, only torn spots in the shapes of tear drops.

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold your breath

 

I lie still. When loud thuds like gunfire overpower U2

playing "With or Without You" on my headphones,

I squeeze my eyes tight, willing the noise to stop.

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold your breath

 

I’m safe, tucked in a tube.

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold your breath

 

A pregnant woman, bloody, swollen

thought she’d be safe inside the maternity ward

in Mariupol, but had to stumble through glass,

rubble, and labor pains to keep her body

and unborn baby from being torn to bits by bombs.

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold your breath

 

How many families are with or without loved ones?

How many hide in basements with no food, water, electricity?

How many buried in mass graves? How many more?

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold your breath

 

The machine done, the radiology tech

tells me I’m good at holding my breath.

 

I leave, await my fate and that of Ukrainians.

 

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Hold my breath

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in One Art, Young Ravens Literary Review, Olney Magazine, As it Ought to Be, Rat’s Ass Review, Sledgehammer Lit, Muddy River Poetry Review, Sanctuary, and others. Her first chapbook Ready or Not was published by Finishing Line Press in October of 2020.

TIME OUT

by Marc Swan

Photo by Nadia Povalinska "who recently fled her home in Ukraine. It is from before the war, just a few weeks and a lifetime ago." —Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From an American, March 11, 2022.

In the photo, her back is to us.

She holds a scarlet red umbrella,

perhaps a harbinger of spring

or an unknowing portent 

of things to come,

that shields her head, 

catches snow 

falling from nearby trees

in a quiet park 

away from busy streets.

Late winter leaves 

glow cinnamon 

on snow-covered branches.

There are tracks, 

but she walks alone

in a small city in Ukraine.

The way life was before 

bombs and rockets fell,

hospitals, churches, clinics fell,

museums, homes, restaurants fell, 

and people—

defending their way of life

now buried in mass graves.

Today two US journalists— 

one dead, the other wounded

just outside Kyiv.

Marc Swan, a retired vocational rehabilitation counselor, lives in coastal Maine. His fifth collection, all it would take, was published in 2020 by tall-lighthouse (UK).