Andy Young


To Your Most Excellent Health


to be alone there
in the antiseptic
in the sound of breath machines
to fight to turn your
eyes to the voice you
hear to summon strength
to whisper back no

one doctor’s giving up
one doctor offers hope
like an amulet 
in a small, sealed jar
we take turns keeping
in our pocket

alone there
in the beeps and groans

you see your own mother there
in the antiseptic
haughty, mid-stride
ice cream cone in her hand
cat-eye glasses a bag at the crook
of her arm
behind her an awning
a shop with shade inside
cool dark shade to be there to be
anywhere home has been
mountains rocky coast close
quarters at the back of town

to not be alone there
sound of breath machines
but with your kids
your brothers

to not be alone
in the beeps and groans
no ungloved touch
no voice you’d know
in your deepest sleep

in the video chat
sound of the breath machines
your eyes still dark and huge still sharp
your hair growing back thick and brown
no gray at all you are tough as the skull
against which your brain presses
lit up white on the scans

alone there
beeps and groans
not knowing why no one visits
though we try to explain

alone in that brightness
in that antiseptic
nurses floating around like spacemen
faces lost in their bright shields
their voices echoes
in a deep
well

Also by Andy Young: "pinworms," "Bomb Shelter, Plaça del Diamant"

Andy Young's second full-collection, Museum of the Soon Departed, was chosen for the inaugural Patricia Spears Jones Award and will be published by Camperdown NYC in late 2022. She is also the author of All Night It Is Morning (Diálogos Press, 2014) and four chapbooks. She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and teaches at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Her work has recently appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Southern Review, Pank, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Cortland Review. Her poems have also been featured in contemporary and flamenco dance productions.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2021