Kate Hanson Foster
911
There is no room for God
on the gurney, as I am placed
into the back of the ambulance.
No God in common madness—
a waste of time and resources,
as the driver calmly radios
“anxiety” and slowly rolls
me away. No God in the salt
of my night sweats or the current
of cancers snaking through
the wall. The fear of my children
dead in their beds, collapsing
into terrible, inevitable endings.
No God when I want to jump
from the bedroom window to feel
a break I can identify—a pain
that might scoop me away
from my emergency—who
wouldn’t scream 911? God doesn’t
know a thing about mothers.
About the writer:
Kate Hanson Foster’s first book of poems, Mid Drift, was published by Loom Press and was a finalist for the Massachusetts Center for the Book Award in 2011. Her work has appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Harpur Palate, Poet Lore, Salamander, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She was recently awarded the NEA Parent Fellowship through the Vermont Studio Center. She lives and writes in Groton, Massachusetts.
Image: The Scarecrow by Joaquim Vayreda (1843-1894). Oil on canvas. 34.84 x 59.64 inches. Between 1883-1885. Public domain.
