Newsletter sign up

Be the first to know when new American Life in Poetry columns are live.

Column 530

Hospital Parking Lot

Intro by Ted Kooser
05.17.2015
Poets often do their best work when they’re telling us about some­thing they’ve seen with­out step­ping into the poem and talk­ing about them­selves. Here’s a love­ly poem of obser­va­tion by Ter­ri Kir­by Erick­son, who lives in North Carolina.

Hospital Parking Lot

Headscarf fluttering in the wind,
stockings hanging loose on her vein-roped
legs, an old woman clings to her husband

as if he were the last tree standing in a storm,
though he is not the strong one.

His skin is translucent—more like a window
than a shade. Without a shirt and coat,

we could see his lungs swell and shrink,
his heart skip. But he has offered her his arm,
and for sixty years, she has taken it.

Share this column

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 © 2014 by Terri Kirby Erickson, “Hospital Parking Lot,” from A Lake of Light and Clouds (Press 53, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Terri Kirby Erickson and Press 53. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.

Column 531
Column 529