The Guest                                                                          —Kelly Dolejsi


Who am I? she asked in the guest room
at her mother’s house. Who’s asking?
she thought. There was nothing she
mustn’t do. As of yesterday, beginning
officially in a room lined with posters
of nostrils, her mother had cancer,
the rooms of her throat full of cells
building more rooms filled with stacks
of cells, cancer like a child playing with
blocks of her loved one on the floor,
while the doctors spoke over its head.
What’s my purpose? she asked. For what
am I thankful? Her mother, full of coffee,
smoke, and strangers, like the Enlightenment.

Kelly Dolejsi

Kelly Dolejsi’s work has been published in Cincinnati Review, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Fifth Wednesday, West Texas Literary Review, and Timberline Review, among other journals. Her poem “Loyalty” was nominated for the Best of the Net in 2017. Additionally, her chapbook, That Second Starling, was published by Desert Willow Press earlier this year. A graduate of Emerson College in Boston, she now lives in Los Alamos, NM, with her husband and daughters.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2018