Scott Wilson ~
God,
Take her breath, still her heart, and
clean her body out with a spoon.
Wring her spirit in the river and
place her eyes beside the moon.
Fold up her memories in a dresser and
frame her
Ruth Bavetta ~
One and a half tubes of smörgåskaviar, most
of a jar of blueberry jam, a full jar of lingonberries.
Four sets of blue plaid pajamas–God forbid
I should have gotten him red. Six pairs
of reading glasses, going back
in
Laura Grace Weldon ~
Get out my green mug, round as a pregnant belly.
Casually pour grounds in the filter
despite monitoring devices warning
of an intruder’s presence.
Act normally. Breathe deeply.
Let the cosmic swirl of cream in hot coffee
remind me how
Erika Walker ~
“It’s as if you’re at the top of a hill,”
the doctor said. My father listened
from his hospital bed, a plastic tube
fed him breath he could no longer take
for himself. “Each time you get sick,”
the doctor
Amulya Iyer ~
The professors,
they teach us
the types of diuretics,
their effects on the tubules–
convoluted or not.
They tell us to check
for pitting edema,
and grade it to see
how bad it has gotten.
But who
Richard Weiss ~
At two am its insistent ring ambushes me awake.
I whisper, not wanting to disturb my wife or rouse
the dog who will whine for food, write down
the name and number before it’s jumbled, swallow
my resentment on being awakened and
Jeanne LeVasseur ~
Even now, some eat strawberries in the sunshine,
some pace the deck in a strong salt breeze,
while for others, the music is winding down.
Always unfair–a few of us in lifeboats,
some sinking in the icy water,
others on a
Dianne Silvestri ~
The corridors seethe with nocturnal predators,
their voices low.
My door latch coughs, a figure hisses,
I’ve come to draw blood,
wrenches my arm like a lamb shank,
rasps it with alcohol, plunges her spike,
pops one after another color-coded
rubber-stoppered
Martha Carlough ~
In medical school
I learned the particular sensitivity
of the breastbone
The rub of a knuckle
awakens even one deeply asleep
beckoning back to the present moment
Grief has the potential
to show us how cramped–
even
Laurice Gilbert ~
4th January 1986 / opened the journal and wrote the first entry:
swapped completely from mercury to digital thermometer
basal body temperature: a colorful set of graphs that each invests
3 months with footnotes, asterisks and inexplicable numbers
Reading: Birth Without Violence
Dianne Avey ~
So this is what it feels like
to be on the other side.
Hollowed out exhaustion,
rimmed with the chaotic clutter
of struggle and hope.
Like the beach after a tsunami,
all those once-important items,
now floating around uselessly.
Allie Gips ~
Winter in New England and
night replaces afternoon, darkness wraps the streets while we are all still inside.
There are no windows in the Emergency Department anyway
except of course the window into this city–the stream of women with bruised arms
and
