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Johnny Doe
Policemen pose like plastic toy soldiers,
point rifle barrels in every direction,
ghetto bird’s spotlight glints off helmets.
Ambulance allowed across yellow tape,
diesel engine grinds up the sharp grade.
In no moon you glow fish white belly up,
streetlamp casts mottled shadows,
your blood a preschool finger painting
smeared on sidewalk.
I am ordered to shear off your slick, soaked
jeans, to smash your chest, beat your heart
for you. Your arms extend savior-like,
needles are pounded into veins,
translucent bags held skyward
like offerings to a life-giving deity,
clear liquid bleeds in, your blood pours out,
three bullet holes versus six-minute
trip to emergency room. How old are you?
I think about my son asleep at home.
I wonder if your mother’s at work.
I breathe deep, drive fast,
make the siren a prayer
too loud for your God to ignore.
About the poet:
An emergency medical technician for twelve years, Yvonne Estrada currently works as an ambulance driver for the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Authority. “I have always written poems, and my
Wanting to Be Lovely
Breast budding, spring leaves,
twelve, too young for babies,
she grasps her pillow to her belly,
the smell of the first crocuses,
the last cardinal’s song
echoes from the hawthorn.
The lemons whisper in her ear
before she squeezes, rubs
the rinds on her damp skin,
her hand touches nylon,
lace, a mirror image river,
a windowless desire:
the first stirring of her fingers
between her thighs, the robins’
annual return becomes monthly.
About the poet:
Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM. His poetry mostly appears on the Web, and his two self-published poetry books, Writers’ Block and Greeting Card, are available online. Gurney has participated in the University of New Mexico’s Arts-in-Medicine program and hosts a poetry salon at his home twice a month. Other pleasures he enjoys: baseball, bicycling, hiking the desert and foothills trails, Scrabble and good conversation. Gurney’s Website is www.kpgurney.me.
About the poem:
The image of a girl wanting to be adult came to me nearly fully formed out of the artistic ether, and I painted what I saw with words.
The Limits of Medicine
I can not change the color of the sky.
The texture of the rain, the distance of a star
must needs be fixed by ancient ritual
unaccepted by our modernity.
I can not change the length of your night.
The number of hours, the days of your life
are set by stern fate, impassive to sighs,
unsympathetic, and cold to your plight.
I can not count the breaths that are left.
Day into day, year into frightened morn,
only you, in your heart can know
the obscurity of the sand that now sifts.
I can not make a single tear move;
Its salt will wend its way to the earth
that calls with an irresistible force,
one that will not soon leave off.
I have been roundly trounced
by movements and thunderings greater
by far than my hand’s grasp;
and for their final victory, I apologize.Â
About the poet:Â
Frances Wu is assistant director of the Somerset Family Medicine Residency Program in Somerville, NJ, and teaches at New Jersey Medical School/UMDNJ and Drexel University College of Medicine. “My passions include caring for my patients as if they were members of my family; teaching family medicine, bioethics and patient safety to
Now a lightness
4:57 am, Sunday
This week went
from caring with hopeÂ
for a lucid patient to facingÂ
reality in advocating sanityÂ
to an insane extendedÂ
family to haggling with specialists
to giving up time
and again telling MaryÂ
she was dying and then watching
her cling to her lost life like
everyone else toÂ
finally withdrawing all care
except for comfortÂ
and comforting the now lucid familyÂ
while the breaths becameÂ
distant
and the pauses
prolonged
and everyoneÂ
cried, including myself,Â
whenÂ
the last oneÂ
left.Â
It was raining
when they called me. The familyÂ
said it just started, right beforeÂ
the end. Like the sky had opened up
to let her in.
About the poet:
Fasih Hameed, a family physician in Santa Rosa, California, is currently completing a fellowship in integrative medicine for the underserved. After graduation he will continue to bring integrative medicine to community health centers in northern California. He has dabbled in the creative arts all his life and is currently focusing on music (guitar/vocals/percussion/composition), poetry and building wooden surfboards. In medical school he worked with the art group Students Against Right Brain Atrophy, and he still organizes and attends peaceful anti-atrophy rallies whenever possible.Â
About the
Failure to Thrive
My matched set of nonagenariansÂ
is almost two hundred years old
and nearing escape velocity.
They are failing to thrive with a vengeance.
They have outlived everyone
except the powers of attorney
for whom they are a source of consternation.
Their constipation is prune-proof.
They scratch where it itches till it bleedsÂ
and call on me to staunch the bleeding.Â
They can’t recall our earnest conversations.
Adult Protective ServicesÂ
elicitsÂ
their indignation reflex. They ready, aim
and fireÂ
their walkers at the social worker.
Pride goes before their falls.
They hoard.Â
In their home every room is attic.
Neither odor nor order matters.
Thank goodness you’re here they say
and then berate me.Â
It’s true.
I don’t know what to do.
I meet the lawyer at the bedside.
I meet the notary at the bedside.
We arrange for the funeral homeÂ
to call me at home.
By the end their ashes plus the urn
will weigh more than they did.
The wind always knows what to do.
About the poet:Â
Daniel Becker practices and teaches general internal medicine and palliative care at the University of Virginia School of Medicine where he also edits the on-line journal Hospital Drive. In August
Does the Buddha Play Pool?
Come Medicine Buddha
Come shine your rays upon me
Penetrate deep within my body
To quell my queasy stomach
And soothe my aching bones.
Let those golden arrows
Shoot deep within my frame
Extinguishing the round tumors
That live inside of me.
Like a pool cue poised and ready
Aim straight for the triangle
Number 6 in right side pocket
Red 4 to far left corner.
Knocking away each colored ball
Dropping steadily into the pockets
Clearing away the hard assortment
Until only white and black remain.
The 8 ball holding fast
White blood cell gearing up.
And, then, a final shot–and POP!
No more colored balls
The table’s cleared.Â
About the poet:Â
Lenora Lapidus is an attorney and the director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. She litigates and engages in advocacy in courts throughout the United States and in international human-rights forums. Her work addresses economic justice, violence against women, educational equity and women and girls in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. She has written and read poetry for many years. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband and daughter.Â
About the poem:Â
This poem was written shortly after I was
Mistaken Identity
Surgery finished,
I finally sleep
Pushing my shoulders,
the technician wakes meÂ
“Come now, we needÂ
a chest x-ray”
Smiling, she pulls meÂ
into position
The x-ray machine
tight against me
Finally getting a chance,Â
I ask what she is doingÂ
“Oh,” she says “I have
the wrong one
You are not a 64
year old male”
Lying me down,Â
she walks away
As I fall back to sleep,
I wonder, now bald
what I mustÂ
look like
About the poet:
Kathleen Grieger has published poetry in many venues, including Free Verse, Caduceus, Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine, The Healing Muse and online in Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine and Breath and Shadow. She has written hundreds of poems about her brain surgeries as well as her interactions with physicians and other healthcare professionals. Her poems are currently used at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee to teach that patients are people first.Â
About the poem:
“Frustrated with the problems and errors that were hugely complicating my medical treatment after brain surgery, I realized that it was necessary for me to start writing again. Because I’d been so busy before, my poetry had been set aside; picking it up again was the best thing
Cure
Veneta Masson
In Latin it means care,
conjures priests and temples
the laying on of hands
sacred pilgrimage
sacrifice
the sickbed
invalid and
solemn attendants.
How far we have come.
Today’s EnglishÂ
has neatly expungedÂ
these purely human elements.
Cure is impersonal, consequential
unequivocal, sometimes violent–
the annihilationÂ
of the thing that ails.
This nurseÂ
approaching the patient
has discarded temple garb
for practical scrubs.Â
His gloved handsÂ
unsheathe the magic bullet,
shoot it through the central line
where it locks onto the target cells.
For the not-yet-cured,
there is still sacred pilgrimage–
that dogged slog
to the high tech shrine,
the health food store,
the finish line of the annual race
where, etched on each undaunted face,Â
is a gritty tale of survival.
About the poet:
Veneta Masson RN is a nurse and poet living in Washington, DC. She has written three books of essays and poems, drawing on her experiences over twenty years as a family nurse practitioner and director of an inner-city clinic. Information about her poetry collection Clinician’s Guide to the Soul is available at sagefemmepress.com.
About the poem:
“What started me on the path toward this poem was my ambivalence about symbolic ribbons of all colors, the
Listening
Elizabeth Szewczyk
I couldn’t erase their words,
catch the breath atoms, stuff
them between lips,
couldn’t raise survival rates,
lottery odds dependent on cells suctioned
at the precise moment.
Your chest thumping, frantic,
valves siphoning warmth, drawing
cold through vessels, to your feet
crisping leaves beneath us while
you spoke her life.
Replaying slowly, baby girl, toothless
smile, creative toddler scissoring
Barbie hair (and styling hers to match).
Then, like a runner, sprinting
to that day the tumor revealed
itself, unveiled her future and yours.
You visioned her mane, now extinct,
loose, straight, gracing the crook
of her back, gracing the oval of her
face, strands like gold
embroidery framing emerald eyes.
We’d be mother-friends,
shooting Prom pictures,
scarlet satin shushing past her hips,
his fingers yanking the collar of his tux.
They’d glisten, her upswept hair
perfumed hibiscus.
About the poet:Â
Elizabeth Szewczyk’s poems have appeared in Westward Quarterly, Crazylit, Chanterelle’s Notebook, Shapes andFreshwater, which she co-edits. She is also the author of the memoir My Bags Were Always Packed: A Mother’s Journey Through Her Son’s Cancer Treatment and Remission (Infinity Publishing, 2006)