Illness flicks on a bare overhead bulb, illuminating a world previously dark. There is death, peering from behind a cracked door across the hall of a suburban New Jersey hospital with a smirk. Was he watching me the whole time? There is the world, in motion outside the window as fall drags its browning leaves from swaying trees. Has time always bent like this?
These days around surgery are hazy. Rest is not a choice.
Rest is a force that carries its own gravity.
Published May 2025
Cover image: “The Wild Wild Rest” by Dyne Kim
Jenn Hall 