After the RED WHEELBARROW

Feb. 12, 2016

You’ve gotta elevate the foot at or above heart level
that’s what love is,
it reduces swelling.

If all else fails
examine jugular veins for distension. Listen.
Spike an IV

because love is a metaphor that infuses the crosshairs of mortal history
with 5 percent saline—

and in the back of the rig, first aid sways treacherously
as you heave her legs into a wide-angled “U”—

Push you say
Push you pray to the bald mountains glazed with rainwater
Push! for god-sakes for salvation that rings like gun against sky,
siren against intersection.

You, peering between
two portly legs,
your arms quaking
under the weight of two inanimate handles
the heft of a wheelbarrow,

glistening crests of sweat
moving down that little dimple above your lip.
That’s what love is.

–Ashlyn Morris 2014

Each year, NEOMED sponsors a national William Carlos Williams poetry contest, named for the American physician-poet. Ashlyn Morris was a 2014 awardee. Her piece was inspired by a William Carlos Williams poem:

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.