“What could go wrong?”
my friend asks
as we enter the ruined grounds.
As if in reply,
a sign on the wall
warns of falling bricks.
Broken glass and syringes
live in the tall grass, and she
is in mini shorts and go-go boots.
The distant front gate
reflects blue and red sirens,
and all I can do is pray,
and swear I’ll never
do this again. What did I think
I’d find here?
In one of the hospital’s windows,
a high schooler spray-paints:
I am angry about things.
Voices gang up behind us
but it’s only
a family out walking their dog.
It’s a weekday. “Better than Saturdays,”
my friend says, “when the locals
barbeque on the roof and everyone’s here.”
Behind the sanatorium, kids
rope-swing into a creek. As we leave,
their irreverent laughter echoes.
Twenty-five years ago,
tuberculosis lived here.
We are nineteen—we are alive
and stupid, as if we’re
any different than this place,
as if we’ll never die.
Meg Eden Kuyatt teaches creative writing at colleges and writing centers. She is the author of the 2021 Towson Prize for Literature winning poetry collection “Drowning in the Floating World,” the forthcoming “obsolete hill” (Fernwood Press) and children’s novels including the Schneider Family Book Award Honor-winning “Good Different,” and the forthcoming “The Girl in the Walls” (Scholastic, 2025). Find her online at megedenbooks.com.