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A Vitruvian Man
Tabor Flickinger
He marked a copy of da Vinci’s sketch
To map his ailments: drew an arrow from
The eye to cataracts, the feet nerve pain.
The groin said hernia, the navel at
The center of it all colostomy.
He offers up this artifact to his
New doctor: fills the outline with a tale
Of his true flesh unique in variance
From all ideal cosmographies of man.
Birth
Albert Howard Carter III
(for NCC and RAC)
My wife lies in the little room,
tight as a drum, and even more convex.
She breathes hard as the contractions come.
The doctor, some 20 feet away,
shares his lunch with me,
the husband and coach;
My wife, lunchless today,
hears this act of betrayal
and resents (I learn later)
that we are eating cake:
she’s clearly in “transition,”
when even the nicest women
can become cranky.
Groans and wails fill the hall;
The place sounds like a zoo.
Aperture
Martin Kohn
(for Helen)
This openness into
This brightness onto
This bodied and
dis-embodied
sunken-eyed
knowing
This close
and blinking
moment
This shutter stop
goodbye
Your round soft
shoulder pillowed
beneath a feeble
hug
The Lord
“not quite ready”
to take you
even though you
and Trixie your cat
had walked the dark path
to him again
Scarves: a DVD
Holly Zeeb
I watched her
fling and tie
those scarves
so gracefully,
magically,
to adorn
her beautiful
shining head,
as if doves
might flutter forth.
Her steady voice
was gentle,
reassuring,
as if it were
an easy thing
A Sigh on Rounds
Jerald Winakur
White coat, sterile gloves
my instrument dangling
but she finally died
after such a struggle–the young
always struggle so–
I listened to her chest
till it stopped then clicked
off the machine.
It sighed for us all as the air
drained out. And the moon
was still low in the sky
so large, so round–this
is a shape I know well–
and it hung there like a silver disc
auscultating the earth…
But I could no longer listen
as I sat on a night lawn
slowly moistening.
The Cancer Center
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 people waiting in
the tasteful lobby. Down the stairs
I join a group of lonely people in a
silent prayer to gamma rays and science:
Please, some more time. Do not let us die, yet.
Community Medicine
Kendra Fleagle Gorlitsky
Are you going to take that long with all the patients?
  Depends. If they’re really sick, I’ll have to.
I’m just saying…there are a lot waiting.
  Well, this one tried to kill herself last year. And today she’s really hurting.
I wanted a full physical, and I heard this is just a check-up, but I’ve been waiting over two hours!
  Could you put this gown on, please. What are you worried about?
I can’t find work that doesn’t make me lift, but I can’t lift.
  Can you swim?
Never learned.
  What was your favorite job?
Teaching the Wound
Joanne M. Clarkson
          For LS
Assume pain, I tell them, the young, the
minimum-waged, those who work the midnight
shift with no chance for stars. We lean
over the bed of a 93-year-old man with advanced
Parkinson’s disease. His face is
frozen, even his eyes don’t seem to move
unless you watch the sheen. These
student aides are to turn him, bathe and lotion
his stiffened limbs. After they roll him silent
and awkward as a rug, I notice the bandage
discolored with seepage, covering his left
calf. The notes had not mentioned
Unreturned Pages
Doug HesterÂ
Exhalations materialize in the dark as I walk
from the empty parking deck. I brew coffee,
then print a list–our census is up to thirty.
I grab my coat and start seeing patients:
the gastric bypasses, the nine ex-laps,
the psychotic panniculectomy patient,
and the bowel obstruction we are watching.
I page just before six to ask about his diet,
but you don’t answer me, so I move on,
jotting ins and outs, celebrating flatus.
Knocking on the Whipple’s door, I think
of you suddenly and my gut spasms,
smothered by the weight of living like this.
I page again from the ICU, staring at a phone,
wondering if it has finally gotten to you, torn flesh
with no one to hold pressure or throw a stitch.