camaraderie

I posted this poem in March 2023, and then Blue Heron Review published it this spring. I just got an email that they've nominated it for the Best of the Net Anthology! Thank you, Blue Heron.

camaraderie  
June 1976

hunched on a hard chair
in an airless room 
I cupped my head 
in my hands and wept

to save his life
they would saw  
through his breastbone 
his chest as small
as my open hand— 
stop his heart 
rebuild the inside
sew him shut

a presence beside me,
her hand a mere moth
dusting my arm
here—for you
offering a fresh-lit 
Marlboro bearing 
her kiss of lipstick
I accepted the gift 

glancing up, four 
others, all mothers, 
waited
us, too, one said