appealing

The Maynard
Spring 2015

Chelsea Eckert

Self-Portrait (Hospital Poem I)

Gently I resisted the dunes’ restful
exhale which beckons the guts to empty.

They removed the sandstorms from my
mortar. So then I got drunk on schedule.

Dinner in three hours — squatting on
the chairs meant for visitors, searching

the walls for civilization in a cyan
Berber’s tent, I embrace my court of good

intentions. I genuinely thought that I
was Ozymandias.