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Top of the Hill
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 said, “you roll a little farther
down the hill.” His young face shone
above his white coat. I remember rolling
down green hills when I was young,
playing in the park where my father
had played as a child. I laughed, loved
the bump and thrill, the sweet smell
Water
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 teaches
the student
to kneel by the woman,
her legs swollen,
her heart failing in her chest–
to slip off old shoes,
roll down damp socks,
and touch her feet
as if asking
to be blessed?
Night Call
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 listen
to his story–then ask those practiced questions,
scrolling his body from one organ to another.
Tell me about the pain–what it feels like–pressure
or a vise, does it stab, sear, rip, ache, is it steady
Titanic
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 slanting deck about to go under.
We make salami sandwiches on rye,
smoke a cigarette after passionate love,
and wave goodbye to the yellow school bus.
We never know when–
until the deck slants and the loud machinery
grinds still.
Lucky are those who glimpse the stars,
get a chance to be noble,
to love and forgive, as the fugitive melody swells.
Phlebotomist
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,
Riven
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 deadened–we’ve become
Chest riven with pain
my fingers are now free
to explore the stories
Pregnancy Journal
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 / The Paper Midwife
A Guide to Responsible Home Birth
21st January / passed my Distance Learning exam in Horticulture
Human Biology next perhaps / forgot to take my temperature
The Morning After You Died
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.
I don’t know how to start this life
again.
This morning, they came
and took the bed away.
Walking Each Other Home
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 orbits that they will not explain, the revolving door of opiate addicts
nodding off, crying out, praying for forgiveness, the chronic-pain patients who rip
apart all of your idealism and ambition, trade it in for a one-time hit of oxy.