~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of March 2025 ~
Tag: Rachel Mallalieu
I Gave Up Chaos by Rachel Mallalieu
I Gave Up Chaos
In front of our house, crocuses erupt in a riot
of purple and yellow. For Lent, I gave up
chaos—the pervasive violence
of blue light.
Instead, I soak in the glow
of our grow lamps. In the basement,
tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers unfurl their fuzzy
heads. We are enlarging the garden this year.
When my fingers itch to flick between headlines
proclaiming wreckage and ruin, I will plunge
them into bread dough and shape our next meal.
And when that voice bleeds through the radio and TV,
I will attend to my children, who are still young
enough to laugh in the future’s face.
*
Rachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. Some of her recent work is published in Chestnut Review, Whale Road Review, Rattle and Westwind. Rachel is the author of the chapbook A History of Resurrection (Alien Buddha Press 2022).
Two Poems by Rachel Mallalieu
How to Survive a Crowded ER Waiting Room
Be grateful for this insider view.
Unless you’ve been stabbed or shot, do not
crumple to the ground and scream help me
help me. The triage nurses have seen it all
and will remain unmoved, possibly hostile
in the face of your histrionics. Do not shake
your fist at the staff and threaten to call
the CEO or the local news or write a bad
review of the hospital on Yelp. Those of us
who withstood the scourge of Covid
and stuck around are no longer swayed by fear.
Here’s what you should do. Put the hood
of your jacket up and withdraw your chin
into your collar so only your eyes are showing.
Observe the chaos. Be pleased you are not the addict
nodding off in the corner, his arms more wound
than skin. Consider thanking god that you are better
off than the man with the matted beard
who dresses the tree trunks of his leaking
legs with garbage bags.
Last shift, a man figured out how to skip to the front
of the queue. After quietly waiting for six hours, he walked
towards the bathroom, and the clot which nestled
in his lungs finally caused his heart to halt,
then he collapsed in the doorway with one leg
bent beneath him and the other extended into
the waiting room. We all went running—started CPR,
pushed the medications, shocked him—everything.
We tried, tried for over an hour.
His wife had gone home to sleep because the wait
was so long. No one wanted her to wreck
the car so we didn’t tell her he was dead
when we called and asked her to return to the ER,
and told her in person instead. Her wails
echoed all the way into the back. Know this,
it’s not the worst thing if you wait awhile.
*
Penumbra
The geese flew south and promptly
returned, floating in a pond
that should be frozen.
In this disordered February,
starlings blanket the oak like leaves
and half the cherry tree blossoms.
When I was young, my father
was rarely home; when he arrived,
his gift of presence forged a corona
more luminous with each absence.
Not long ago, my mother called
and screamed he was unconscious,
likely dying. I raced the ambulance
to the hospital and arrived to find
him alive, but eclipsed behind the eyes,
both here and there. As his halo dims,
shadow remains and it still hasn’t snowed
this winter. Rain displaces worms
who writhe on the sidewalk.
These days, I pray for a glimpse
of the cardinal’s ruby breast.
*
Rachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. Some of her work is featured or forthcoming in Rattle, Chestnut Review, Whale Road Review and Superstition Review. Rachel is the author of A History of Resurrection (Alien Buddha Press 2022).