By Paulette Guerin
Living by the hospital I hear
at any hour the helicopter
lifting someone in or out.
The sky is neither open nor quiet.
The stars don’t turn away;
they are sucked blind in the city lights.
We’ve spent years praying
for those airdropped in.
We’ll never know their names.
Paulette Guerin lives in Arkansas and teaches writing, literature, and film. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, The Southern Review, epiphany, Carve Magazine, and others. She is the author of Wading Through Lethe (FutureCycle Press) and When I First Loved You (forthcoming from Belle Point Press). She also has a chapbook, Polishing Silver, as well as a chapbook-sized selection in the anthology Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Cornerpost Press). Her website is pauletteguerin.com.