Things God’s Hospice Nurse Hears Him Muttering
(from the first lines, in order, of Rattle’s Fall 2021 Issue)
by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose
We can now assume
I got a book.
We can’t say how.
The day they took the siren confession,
they should have given him a church.
I found I was horrible. My son tried three times.
Very old, at night.
I am sorry.
Arguably the worst decision:
all the stars.
Glorious.
I’m glad that there’s this:
the Gobi.
Every summer waits downhill.
I remember water,
country, rusting, kissing.
They’ll likely burn.
Do you know why?
The thrum.
Then hymns.
The end planting is alive.
It can be dangerous.
She had some.
Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose’s writing appears in The Atlantic, Rattle, McSweeney’s, Room, Mom Egg Review, Women Studies Quarterly, and Feminist Formations, among others. She is the author of two chapbooks: Wild Things, (Main Street Rag, 2021) and Imago, Dei (winner of the Rattle Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2022). Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at Monroe Community College and co-founder of the Rochester-based writing group Straw Mat Writers, she also facilitates a writing group for breast cancer survivors. She lives in Rochester, NY with her partner, daughters, and rescue animals. Find her at elizabethjohnstonambrose.com.