They Called It The Parlor by Meghann Plunkett

but it was just a small, sectioned off square of linoleum–a mock-room
              made with thick, hospital-blue curtains swooping open and closed
                              like a school play, whooshing women in and out with a metallic

whir. We were there to release the slow sludge of anesthesia
               from of our eyes. Ushered inside to recline in a chair matted
                             with a waterproof sheen. Polyester groaning and the weight

of a body mid-bleed, an inch of cotton pressed between our legs.
              Lit like a supermarket, five of us wreathed into a circle of bright loss.
                            A thin paper gown pulled down as I tucked my knees

into the cramping. One woman pulled a curl from her head and let it snap
               back, snap back with the buzz of the fluorescents. Another thumbed
                           through the worn pages of a Bible, mumbling a silent prayer.

The attempt to make it appear as though it were a living-room uneased me.
               A side table nesting a small plastic plant, a staged coffee table
                            in the center and a bowl of waxed apples. A nurse swooped

in now and again to take our temperatures with a sheathed thermometer
               like a hummingbird trying to feed from our mouths. We opened
                            and closed our jaws like clock toys. A check next

to each of our names, we waited– silent as a blackout. Let me never forget
               how each of us, learning how to stand again, shifted our weight
                           from foot to foot in slip-free, neon socks. Each of us holding

a little pouch of wafers to bring our blood-sugar up. And the woman with
               a port-wine stain covering one eye. How she leaked penny-sized
                           breastmilk stains and breathed into her hands, palming

her mascara into long, grey streaks. And how the nurse leaned down to tell her
              that the man she came with needed to know         how much longer?
                           Let me never forget the way her body bucked

in response. Looking at me with disbelief. Let me never forget how we
              laughed, shaking our heads, letting our hands touch.
                           In that room stinging with women, I sat there with her

in defiance.               Let him wait.

Meghann Plunkett is the recipient of the 2017 Missouri Review’s Editors’ Prize as well as the Third Coast Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in Best New Poets 2018, Narrative Magazine, Washington Square Review, among others. She serves as the Poetry Reader for The New Yorker. Visit her at meghannplunkett.com