Aaron Caycedo-Kimura

Survivor’s Bell

Originally published in Louisiana Literature

 

a crystal tone cracks        waiting room silence        stops

time from breathing        like a symphony’s final chord

 

another survivor        a young woman        beams

next to the brass bell         mounted on the wall

 

rippling applause        other patients        once-over

her posture        complexion        full head of short hair

 

my mother at eighty-six        returns to her crossword

erases a row of squares        wipes the dust off the page

 

staring at my iPad’s lock screen        I’m certain

she’ll never pencil        the ten letters        she needs
 

Aaron Caycedo-Kimura is the author of Ubasute (Slapering Hol Press, 2021) and Common Grace (Fall 2022). His honors include a St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award in Literature and nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets anthologies. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Daily, RHINO, upstreet, Verse Daily, DMQ Review, Poet Lore, The Night Heron Barks, and elsewhere.