I
Green apple split top to bottom
encapsulated in a blue severed heart
hugged by rhythmic pink pulmonary vessels
clasping lung sacs—twin bellows
Will the halved mirror images
stitch the fissures whole?
II
My parents, first husband,
all emphysema.
Second one,
lung cancer.
Me as a child, asthma,
inhaler hidden—my secret defect.
Karen George is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), and Caught in the Trembling Net (2024). She won Slippery Elm’s 2022 Poetry Contest, and her award-winning short story collection, How We Fracture, was released by Minerva Rising Press in January 2024. Her work appears in Adirondack Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Cultural Daily, and Poet Lore. Her website is https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/.
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Wonderful and timely!