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Echocardiography
Rachel Hadas
One: secretarial computer screen:
appointments, cancellations. Two: machine
we’re here for, registering your heart’s each pump
with grainy images that throb and jump
in sync with the obscure interior.
Three: anticlimactic VCR
screen, a tiny, garish old cartoon
squawking and jerking in the darkened room.
Past these respective renderings of vision
we move next door. Here the examination
is palpable, is stethoscope to chest:
breath in, out, raise your arms, stand, squat, and rest.
I’m sitting, staring vaguely at the sky–
from the ninth floor, a pale blue vacancy.
What is a window but another frame
or screen through which to ponder–is it time
or space that peels this dull facade to show
the poverty of what we really know
despite the wealth of data we can see
via machines that pierce opacity?
Well, no more screens for one more year or two
Thank you and goodbye. It’s time to go.
About the poet:Â
Rachel Hadas is board of governors professor of English, Newark campus, Rutgers University. The latest of her many books of poems is The River of Forgetfulness (David Robert, 2006); Classics (WordTech Communications), a volume of selected prose, was published in 2007. Her website is www.rachelhadas.com.
Reference Range
Veneta Masson
Your tests show
the numbers 73, 90, 119 and 2.5,
the letter A,
the color yellow,
a straight line interrupted by a repeating pattern
of steeples and languid waves,
a gray asymmetrical oval
filled with fine white tracery,
35 seconds,
100 millimeters,
II.
I’m not sure what to make of these.
With the possible exception of II,
which like all Roman numerals
is subject to misinterpretation,
I see no cause for alarm.
I admit to a preference for low numbers,
the apothecary system over the metric
(my age, perhaps, and distrust of pure logic)
and the letter W,
though most of my colleagues favor
M.
I think you can be happy with yellow
and, based on my experience,
the fact that the straight line is punctuated.
Seconds, millimeters–I marvel at their finitude,
but this oval, so intricate, so light,
might well contain a universe.
Is it normal, you ask.
Normal’s a shell game you seldom win.
Take my advice. Enjoy good health
not as your due but the blessing it is
like Spring, laughter,
death.
About the poet:
Veneta Masson RN is a nurse and poet living in Washington, DC. She has written three books
A Certain Anesthesia
Arthur Ginsberg
Exhaustion sets in by day’s end
when the old Pakistani woman
hobbles into my office.
Raccoon eyes underscore the pain
she feels in her left leg. More cavalier
than a Hippocratic disciple should be,
I pull up her djellaba* to expose
the dark, tumescent flesh of her calf
monogrammed by serpiginous veins.
I am too aggressive with the needles
that search for the source
of the white-hot poker lancinating
from ankle to groin, muscular infidelity.
She is stoic,
so well schooled in cruelty
that even I pretend not to see
the slight jiggle of her jaw, enough
to tell me I have crossed the border
of disrespect. Apocryphal as it may be,
this is what I have to give
at the end of the day, a certain anesthesia
for the provenance of pain, how
she stands after it is all over,
rearranges her covering, and leaves me
speechless with the tent of her hands.
*pronounced je-lab’: A long, hooded garment with full sleeves, worn especially in Muslim countries.
Redesigning the practice of medicine
Pamela Mitchell
what if we went slowly thoughtfullyabout the business of healing
what if I bowedto you and you to mebefore we touched aching bodies
what if we saidout loudthisis sacred workmight I be madeworthy
what if I blessed your handsand you minebefore we began
repairingdeliveringdressinglistening to
broken bodieshungry souls
would we then returnto the placewhere so long agowe felt called
where we knew for sure thatwe did indeedhave hearts
hearts that beat confidentlyfullof ambition
hearts that were courageousenough to break
againand againand again
hearts that were not afraidto weep
at the sheer beauty offulminating organ
the raw painof splintered fracture
the howling lossof bodily movement
what if we were unafraid to weepat the joyof newborns crowning
or the resurrectionof hearts expired
what if we were unafraidto sayI do not know the answer
and welcomed Humilityinto our practice
what if we sat down with Hersaid a blessing
and quietly contemplated
the Mystery
About the poet:
A nurse for thirty years, Pam Mitchell RN MFA currently enjoys nursing in mental health. She was anthologized in Intensive Care (Cortney Davis