Pillow

by Ben Gunsberg

Pillow

You deserve more than just enough morphine
to halter the red-eyed mare. More than this

clean, plush thing your head imprints post-split
and exorcism of lymph nodes. More than swift

renewal of soft tissue and the infinite view
from a hospital room on the fourteenth floor.

More than parched hours spent sponging your lips,
you deserve a bite of sausage, good coffee, chocolate

éclair, the stubborn memory of Yiddish, a chorus
of chickens, pink orchids climbing the sun’s trellis —

anything to distract while thinning your cells
for months.  An old boardwalk softened by mist

returns with its grey tenements, for something must
explain patience to young streetlamps trying to rinse

the asphalt of darkness. You deserve Westbrook Mall,
where bargain hunters stockpile wool socks, porcelain

dolls, and vanishing cream. Though you can’t eat
solid food, you deserve a discount on blueberries.

Though you won’t speak or open your eyes,
you deserve a brisk travel agent to book

a private tour, the trip to Egypt you thought canceled:
transatlantic flight, then a slow walk through scentless

desert with your partner, to whom you cling,
who clings to you like a tuft of dogged clover. 

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Poet Ben Gunsberg’s poetry appears in Poetry Daily, DIAGRAM, and Mid-American Review, among other magazines. He is the author of the poetry collection Welcome, Dangerous Life and the chapbook Rhapsodies with Portraits. He teaches English at Utah State University, where he moonlights as the multi-medium editor for Sugar House Review.

Artist Kale Hensley is a West Virginian by birth and a poet by faith. They live in Texas with their wife, best friend, and a menagerie of clingy pets. Find more of their poetry, nonfiction, and visual art at kalehens.com.