Written by Katrina Monroe

Ordinarily they did not allow them
in this sterile wasteland
of beeping machinery and whirring monitors,
their very presence an intrusive affront
to urgent interventions
that might have to be done.

Medical procedures based on science,
allowing no time for sentimentality
in their efficient employment
of the necessary next steps.

But something in a daughter’s pleading eyes
had persuaded the medical director
that the flowers in the ICU
might be allowed to stay, something
in his medical training that harkened back
to miracles not explained
by the wisdom in textbooks.

This work was featured in issue #7