E-folio
Elicit
A Collection of Writings
by ky li
Eng-226-Q3388 Intro to Creative Writing 14EW3 wkli311@gmail.com
©2014 Tortuga Press
Table of Contents
Poem - Underfoot
Short Story - The Awakening
Underfoot
The leaves that once
were a canopy above my head
are now a carpet beneath my feet.
Their browns and greys of decay underfoot
soften my tread on the frozen clay-pack
just enough to break the silence of stillness.
The decision not to rake, bag, burn
or mulch away the deadness
seems intrinsically the thing to do,
much to my neighbor’s chagrin,
but the need for celebration
recurring cyclically as the dropping of leaves
makes me sing with the sacredness of winter’s arrival,
dance with the naked abandon of sinless forests,
and drink to my own browns and greys underfoot.
The Awakening
She could hear before she could feel.
Beep.
"Poor thing."
"She doesn't have any other family?"
Beep - Hum.
"...and we're not to mention her husband's death?"
"No. Doctor's orders."
Beep - Hum. The pain became apparent.
"Oh" she moaned faintly.
"She's waking up" whispered the unknown voice.
Opening her eyes, the dim shadows began moving eerily
across her plane of vision.
Their definition increasing with the throbbing pain in her head and body.
"Where am I" she asked, as one of the two figures exited the room.
"You're in the hospital Mara. I'm Clare your nurse."
She went on to explain the car accident and the broken bones,
both arms and the collar bone.
She had contusions over fifty percent of her body and also a concussion.
Mara noticed the lumbering casts on each of her arms.
That's why she'd been unable to scratch herself she thought.
She scanned the sterile room for color
but found only the muted salmon coloring of the partition curtain.
Everything else was some shade of gray or white.
She realized the incessant beeping and humming
were coming from her heart monitor and IV machine.
"Where's Eric?" she asked.
She noticed Clare's facial muscles flinch
as she told her that Eric was in another room
and still unconscious.
"How long have I been here?"
Clare told her that she and Eric had been brought into the hospital
on Sunday evening and that today was Thursday.
She proceeded to slip Mara's hospital gown off of her.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm giving you a warm sponge bath.
You haven't had one since you've been out of ICU."
The warm water did feel oddly comforting to her skin
but her confusion as to what had happened the night of the accident
and where Eric was, was unsettling.
"Is Eric dead?"
Clare stopped.
Beep - Hum.
ky li is a poet and creative writer from Louisville, Kentucky. He fell in love with poetry at an early age and has been writing ever since. Nature is his muse and he courts her with tenderness and awe.
His love of verse spills over into his lyrics as he writes contemporary folk songs and new thought choral music. As a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, ky has released six solo cds of original works and lent his talent to the recordings of many other artists as well.
This e-folio represents his first foray into the genre of short story.