Judith Hoyer
When News Is Bad
I cry behind the wheel of my car.
Little red flags flutter in my belly.
I read articles that fail to make sense of
consequences that wear black and white.
I take my brother to Herbie’s
Herbie’s where decisions are grilled
“A hamburger, no onion rings!”
Glad for the nearness of strangers
I wait on a folding chair to donate
O negative in a cold hall
bad lighting, kind nurses
needle pricks, tincture of iodine.
At a marquetry exhibit I fall
for a lone Great Blue Heron
whose yellow eye seems to be
searching for what to do next.
Gorgeous trees backlit by sun
middle schoolers peddling grapefruit
construction detours in our village
puncture the skin of my dysphoria.
I muster salt pork, vinegar, onions, beef
for a stew that keeps me on my feet.
Judith Hoyer poems have appeared in The Worcester Review, PMS poemmemoirstory, Spillway Magazine, Main Street Rag, Small Portions Magazine, Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine and Skylight 47. Her chapbook Bits and Pieces Set Aside is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in February 2017. Before retiring she was a psychologist working in a small school district in Massachusetts.
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