Dance

By Phoebe Prioleau

May 14, 2019

Alone in the corner
of the psychiatric emergency room
you dance—slow, rhythmic ups and downs
as if bobbing in an imaginary sea.

You have forgotten:
the scene when we removed your bag
and found the crack
you promised wasn’t there.

The police are gone now;
all is quiet.
Through the Plexiglass I watch you
solo-sway under the fluorescent lights,
your undulating form beckoning
to some unknown.

Editor's Commentary

Phoebe is a second-year pediatrics resident at UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, OH. Before medical school, she pursued graduate studies in French literature and art history. She has published creative work in Doximity, The Living Hand, Annals of Internal Medicine, and The Journal of Medical Humanities, among other places.