hospital – Pulse

Mortality and Morbidity Conference

Rosemary Zimmermann February 21, 2020 3 Comments

I imagined something Victorian.
Perhaps I imagined a lecture hall filled with side-whiskered,
Sherlockian doctors, arguing case histories
like gentlemen playing chess with death–
or perhaps I imagined priests,
performing absolution at the bier.

I did not have to imagine the grey
underground conference room.
I was unsurprised at the bitter
coffee, the keening of the projector, the recalcitrant
bangs from the water pipes–

Phlebotomist

Dianne Silvestri March 30, 2018 10 Comments

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 vial into the sheath,

unplugs each loaded one to add
to the crimson log pile weighting my thigh,

white walls, white pillow

Beverley George March 31, 2017 No Comments

The Cancer Center

Nancy Tune January 30, 2015 9 Comments

Nancy Tune

First impression: New and well appointed,
staffed by friendly people and my favorite, irony.
In the clinic hallway a woman plays a harp.
I have come to learn about the process of
my dying; surely this is meant to shake me
free of dread and make me laugh. It doesn’t, quite.

During treatment: I know where to go,
my focus straight ahead. Walkers,
wheelchairs, frightened

Medical Maze

Josephine Ensign January 23, 2015 2 Comments

Josephine Ensign

About the artist:

Josephine Ensign teaches health policy and narrative medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her literary non-fiction essays have appeared in The Sun, The Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Pulse, Silk Road, The Intima, The Examined Life Journal, Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine, and in the nonfiction anthology, I Wasn’t Strong

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Inside the Hospital

Kendall Madden January 17, 2014 5 Comments

Kendall Madden

It’s a desert in here–
the way they suck
the air from one
compartment to another.
I’m parched–
forgotten rain,
blanched mollusk
without the sea.

My stiff face
tries to smile
at a wilted patient.
Pink-tongued lilies
once in a while
overcome the disinfectant,
stale sweat,
with hothouse perfume.

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my hospital rounds

Randy Robinson December 20, 2013 No Comments

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In the Pediatric Ward

Tess Galati March 12, 2010 No Comments

In this forest of tubes and bottles,
Children wander in sleep.
A dying bird drops
From the corner of my eye.
The night nurse floats through paths
Tending the rooted tubes,
Weighing the pause between breaths.
In the dark, a man’s voice
Stuns like a hunter’s gun.
We wait for dawn.

Last night we cried–four worn children
Facing their walls, and I,
Handing

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Tag: hospital