Laura Winkelspecht

Defibrillator Training

We watch under fluorescent lights
learning to restart a faulty heart,

while I fret about the day
I must hold the paddles to the chest

of Joe in Accounting
with his red face and big laugh

or maybe the woman in the lunchroom
who eats Lean Cuisine

while playing solitaire on her phone—
or maybe it will be me

with a group of people
gathered round

reading instructions
while my heart waits.

Laura Winkelspecht is a left-handed poet and writer from Wisconsin whose last name might be longerthan a one sentence poem.