A Routine Procedure
No Need to Worry
A Routine Procedure
By Eve Zennarrow
It’s 4:30 AM
rise like the sun
and shine on your
garden so awake
and viridescent.
Goddess of love, sing.
-music starts-
I’m trying to look my best,
but the clock is killing me.
Every beam of light
is watching my collagen
ripple, ripple, ripple.
I attempt to navigate
the topography
of your mind, and
I always go wrong
in the same place.
You’re making me
change the station,
hit rewind,
push the piano,
preserve the possibility.
After your voice returns
from the speakers,
I catch and caress it
like a branch of
my apple tree in blossom.
Your face is a tragic hue
reflecting off the glass
I keep dropping.
These hospital shifts
are getting the best of me.
My light blue scrubs
are dark with sweat,
a heart-shaped sweat spot
and a lung-shaped one,
and one shaped like a
hypothalamus in fever.
The air is oversaturated.
The life is rough with simplicity.
I always find the most
ordinary things to be
most salient.
When I packed the outline
of your hair
in my memory,
I composed its curves
to blend harmoniously
with my field of vision.
And when I see it,
I slink behind
the wall of sound,
even though I don’t sing.
Oh no, no, I don’t.
Not like that.
Not like you do.
My rhymes are
imbued with distractions.
I grant them
the benefit of free will,
with the engine running
and the doors open.
My poems are more
Raymond Carver
than Sylvia Plath—
short resumes of the
stories I didn’t have
patience to write.
-music concludes-
Abruptly.
You never stick
to the script.
It’s always
’’let’s improvise’’
like we’re wise
enough to find
the solution:
Oral drops of
medicine, dissolved.
Tissues healing,
one pre-filled syringe
at a time.
Long white corridors
plastered with echoes of
"No need to worry.
It's just a routine procedure.
It's just a routine procedure.
It's just a routine..."
Thanks for reading. This publication will always remain free. If you’d like to support my work, consider sharing, subscribing, or ordering my poetry book with a soundtrack, Brave New Chord.
Best,
Eve



After your voice returns
from the speakers,
I catch and caress it
like a branch of
my apple tree in blossom.
🖤 beautiful
“Push the piano” - alliteration restrained, a well-placed reward!