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Column 514

Shuffling Out Toward Morning

Intro by Ted Kooser
01.25.2015

We describe peo­ple we admire by throw­ing around words like indomitable spir­it,” but here’s an exam­ple and a proof by Don Welch, a Nebras­ka poet.

Shuffling Out Toward Morning

After an hour in the infusion lab,
Taxol dripping into her,
fighting her cancer;

after sitting nauseous
next to a man
vomiting into a Pepsi cup,

she rose, palming the wall,
stooping only to pick up
a pen a doctor had dropped,

giving it back to the doctor
who had slipped it poorly
into his coat.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Don Welch, whose most recent book of poems is Gnomes, (Stephen F. Austin Univ. Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Don Welch. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.