Gail Peck
At the Care Unit
They were on the outside
of a window looking in
at a relative in bed—
their noses pressed
to the glass because
no one could enter.
They were smiling and waving,
and waved back to.
It wasn’t a special occasion,
but a visit for reassurance.
They would come again
to knock on the window
and hold up the smallest
one with them.
Gail Peck holds an M.F.A. from The Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and is the author of nine books of poetry. Her first full-length book, Drop Zone, won the Texas Review Breakthrough Contest; The Braided Light won the 2014 Lena Shull Book Contest. Poems and essays have appeared in Southern Review, Nimrod, Greensboro Review, Brevity, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Comstock Review, and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart and for Best of the Net. Her essay, “Child, Waiting,” was cited as notable by Best American Essays.