A Note from Mom’s Hospital to Excuse My Absence

by LC Gutierrez

Sami Salim

To whom this may concern We are writing to confirm that LC’s mother, xxxx xxxxxxxxx, was admitted on xx/xx/xxxx. She maintains a beauty tendered like that of a felled tree consumed already from beneath. Her fragility reminds one of a keepsake stored in crumbling tissue. He hesitates to touch.

We know that you need him —  but he is ours for now. He sits still bedside studying 9 Traits That Make a Decent Man. Encased in shadowed memory and half-forgiven the boy within — he waits for the boy to forgive him in turn. We thank you in advance for allowing a prodigal shedding and healing to begin in vigil.

We’ll tear at the hardened folds of father child worker son then send back what remains. Know this is a noble game. Although he’ll find we have no medicine for her the uncommon quiet here we hope will dose him new. She has grown so small that he must watch for fear that she might disappear. As she must.

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LC Gutierrez is a Southern and Caribbean writer living in Madrid, Spain. His work is most recently published or forthcoming in Sugar House Review, New York Quarterly, Ballast Journal, Arkansas Review, Rogue Agent, Tampa Review, and South Florida Poetry Journal. He is a poetry reader for West Trade Review.