The molar-shaped hole still healing—dried blood, caved, new gum
beginning to fold over—I pick at it with my tongue.
The passing nurse teases how the finches are attracted to bright colors,
maybe one would land in your hair. They tap their beaks against the glass,
like morse code; me eyeing their very real, very untamed feathers.
Dad tells me, his loose canon of a thirteen-year old daughter, I cannot say
aloud what I know he is too thinking. It’s not just the smell of century-old perfume,
the ugly peeling wallpaper, the stains left on the carpet. We both see the finches’
wings, fresh from a clipping; the fluorescent sign—a sun that will never set
—the wrongness, the confrontation, the taboo of it all, an attempt
at peace, consolidation, grief; even inside a cage within a cage.
When I am noticed for my smooth hands I see the nurses’ hands
are cracked from their ritual washings—I allow myself to imagine
the shape of my new molar, what mold my gum cage will let it take.
An ancient wisdom tooth will erupt behind it, and even in this distant teenhood,
and the finches will continue to remain behind this glass wall, chirping,
flapping amongst the unchanging shades of frizzled, dying hair.
“Finches in the Geriatric Ward” was runner-up for the 2022 Colorado State University Creative Writing
Scholarship.
Lillian Morton is a writer based in Northern Colorado. She was born in Southern China and lived in Central Ohio during her childhood. Her poetry has appeared in issues by Laurel Moon, Polaris, and Dreamer By Night; her short fiction, “In Mason’s Time,” was honorable mention for the University of Colorado Boulder’s 2021 Thompson Writing Awards.
Sparks of Calliope 