Unravel

Melanie Ortiz-Álvarez de la Campa
Departamento de Biología
Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, UPR RP

the white sheets, threadbare and sterile,

hold me in the absence of mother's arms 

and cocoon me in the midst of peril

we waited for hours in crowded lines,

to hear our doctor's indifferent sigh,

the nighttime crying keeps me up sometimes

our numbers stack out of empty wards,

the visitor logs are full of vacancies,

hidden, lest they be called untoward

I have value, my body has value

we kick and scream and beg

stuck in sheets poorer than you

please don't pull on my last thread