LINDSAY ADKINS, "THE PACKAGE" (ISSUE 14)

THE PACKAGE

She is labeling every Last Time,
tucking each one away.
The doctor leaves the room for a

 place where he can be of some use
and she wonders about her liver,
what it looks like spotted

or even unspotted—
she’s never seen it before
and now it is killing her.

 They know what to do with
the body, but what are the rituals
for a half-eaten jar of peaches

at the back of the fridge? The comb
with her hair still in it? The coat
hanging limp by the side door?

Three weeks ago she ordered
a new green blouse. It’d be at the
house by now.

How simple—to open a box,
know what’s inside.

ABOUT THE POET

Lindsay Adkins’ work has been published with The 2River View, Muddy River Poetry Review, the Aurorean, Glass Mountain, among others. She is also a poetry editor over at Vine Leaves Literary Journal. During the day, she works in NYC at Random House Publishing Group. At night, Lindsay spends most of her time battling her penchant for noodles, and losing.

ABOUT THE SOUND OF SUGAR:

We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our seven issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.