After the Stem Cell Transplant
by Laurie Klein
Belated news feels like warmth, one breath
through a lone trumpet heralding dawn,
evoking, deep in the bones, a sensation
of turning. Or is it tidal . . . a rising
akin to time, with its bookending cross-
fades?—starry host melting back
into the wings, that ensuing glow
of a wave, lapping, lapping
along the horizon. O pristine arrival!
Eight hundred thirty white cells, new-
marrowed. Tender as sea foam. Pure
hush. My God, how great thou art.
Laurie Klein writes from a small room under the eaves, hunkered among scruffy yet valiant pines yearly resisting drought, bark beetles, and wildfires—all of them teachers.
Photography by Kenneth Godoy