- Home
- /
- Poems
Poems
Fleeing Alzheimer’s
Sandra Miller
My left hand is an idiot.
I don’t think it can save me.
Deep in my brain, the old twine of brittle DNA,
the sparks of my memory and blasted circuits,
fizz and fray.
The spiral staircase twists, leading nowhere.
They say learn something new
so I rouse the dormant piano and try to
find the stretch, learn the reach
but my left hand bangs out sour notes and
my right hand, my anchor, derails in dismay.
She haunts me, she follows me, she plucks at my sleeve …
I won’t turn and lookÂ
at her chickadee eyes and empty-gourd head,
fumbling at spoons, hair gone askew.
I grasp my loose button, twirling on one thread,
wobbly and worthless.
It’s nearly gone.
Over and over I drill the arpeggio but
my left hand is an idiot.
I don’t think it can save me.
She’s coming.
About the poet:
Sandra Miller has been a faculty member at Banner Good Samaritan Family Medicine Residency for nearly twenty-five years and is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. “My college
Reentry
Sara Brodsky
I sit with three demented women in their nineties.
Three after-dinner conversations fly,
banging into each other,
ricocheting,
drifting off course.
Aunt Sylvia insists she must call her mother.
Edith announces she works for her father.
Mimi declares she has two daughters.
I grab onto this shooting star.
“Where do your daughters live?” I ask.Â
Mimi closes her eyes, and I watchÂ
as the star’s tail
evaporates.
Edith says she starts work early the next morning.
My aunt frets, “We’re the only people left.”
Mimi declares she has two daughters.Â
I try. I ask, “What are their names?”
She shuts her eyes and loses the light.
“You see that woman?” my aunt asks.Â
All eyes follow her pointing finger.
A woman in a calf-length bathrobe shuffles past.
“She’s always going to the bathroom. What does she do in there?”Â
“Maybe she loves sitting in there,” I say.
Aunt Sylvia guffaws.Â
Edith chuckles.
Mimi smiles.
Grounded.
About the poet:Â
Sara Brodsky is a writer and cabaret artist near Boston, MA. Her first career was in healthcare communications, but she left that path to
ADHD
Patricia Ljutic
A flywheelÂ
launched from a brain
that cannot rememberÂ
three consecutive words–
two words, maybe:
“Stop kicking…”
The third word catapults with
the what and the where,
changing channels
with every new activity,
leaving my son aimless,
scattering stones,Â
snapping twigs,
belching at turned heads,Â
spinning.
“S-T-O-P!”
What does stop mean with hisÂ
thoughts ajar?
ADHD: attentionÂ
without a footpath,Â
a train without a brake.
Ignoring directions,
my son’s frontal lobe sputters
–winds and unwinds–Â
toggling like a switchÂ
that switches…that switches…that switches,
careens him into space.
Spinning.
About the poet:Â
Patricia Ljutic, a registered nurse, is director of the Home Health and Hospice Quality program at Vallejo Kaiser Permanente Foundation Hospital, in California. Her poetry and essays have appeared in regional and national publications including Cup of Comfort and Chicken Soup for the Soul. She has won awards for her fiction and nonfiction from Writer’s Digest and Writer Advice.com, respectively. Patricia loves Italian country cooking, amber jewelry, writing, bugging her son to pick up his clothes and food containers, teaching him to live with ADHD and reminding
Kennet Square Clinic
Jessica Bloom
The young woman’s daughter
is shy and beautiful.
Her mother comes to the clinicÂ
with vague complaints:
headache, stomach pain,
fatigue, weakness.
A small, sturdy woman
with an anxious face,
her square jaw is just a bit
bigger on the left. I pictureÂ
the long-healed fracture
in her jutting mandible,
sealed beneath unbroken skin
the color of wheat fields.
Her story is slow to come out.
Many of the patients here
migrate from Mexico each year
to work on the mushroom farms.
I imagine the smell of wet dirt,
the cool, shadowy barns
with stacked rows of wooden pallets,
soft, white globes emerging
out of black soil.
I do not know the nature
of their toil, but I know
the weak resistance,
the fragile release,
of pulling a mushroom
from the earth.
I understand only pieces
of her rapid Spanish, but hear
the edgy thread of despair
that unravels in her voice,
suggesting the tight fist of her will
in which she holds her self-control.
The woman admitsÂ
to feeling depressed.
She believes her husband
drinks too much,
and has been unfaithful.
Presentation
William Toms
The patient is a 61 yo M with a Hx of NIDDM, ASCAD, HBP, COPD and CHF who presents with chest pain radiating to his jaw and both arms for thirty minutes, accompanied by diaphoresis, SOB and nausea. PE shows bibasilar rales, generally regular rhythm with frequent ectopy, an S3 gallop, 2+ JVD, liver edge 10 cm below RCM, 2+ edema. EKG shows Q’s V 1-4, STE V 3-6; CXR shows cardiomegaly and basilar congestion. Initial CPK and troponins are elevated…
and his wife is in the waiting roomterrified
and his children are on the wayworried
and his dog is at homeconfused
and his flowers are in their bedsgrowing
and, yes, he has a Living Will
and, yes, he would like a tissue
to wipe away his tears
About the poet:
Bill Toms was medical director at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene, a large group practice, for nine years, retiring in 2005. He now practices part-time, seeing homebound patients for his colleagues, and leads discussions regarding listening to patients at Dartmouth Medical School. “I have been fortunate to have been a family physician in
In Line at the Hospital Coffee Stand
Tabor Flickinger
At the coffee stand as always getting tea,
so always that the ladies see my weary face
and start the water steaming without words.
I hover there with others waiting think through labs to checkÂ
imaging to glance at does he have pneumonia or pulmonary edemaÂ
has social work found her a nursing home will his family want a feedingÂ
tube despite his end-stage dementia did I order cytology on that peritonealÂ
fluid when will I next see the sun it’s so
“Oh, did you take care of him before? He’s dead.”
                                                                  unnatural in here fluorescentÂ
now where was I peritoneal fluid hey I wonder who is dead
“Yes, I heard. We all had him at some point.Â
He was in the hospital every few weeks for his heart and renalÂ
failure. What happened?”
“He didn’t want to suffer anymore. Had us turn off his defibrillator.Â
Stop dialysis. Arrhythmia. Likely hyperkalemia.”
I know the man they mean without names.
I took care of him before. He’s dead.
His heart pumped ten percent it couldn’t keep fluid outÂ
of his lungs and felt like drowning sometimes better afterÂ
dialysis but he hated the fistula in the arm that got
The Hallway
Colleen Fogarty
Sitting here, waiting to teach a medical student.
My eyes lock
onto the windowed display cabinet of anatomic pathology specimens.
Aging bottles of shriveled dun-colored parts, pale reminders of bodies once vital.
My thoughts drift
my rib pain, localized, continuous, nagging.
my breast cancer, localized, excised, treated…just over a year ago.
What pains my rib?
Mets?
Muscles?
These tumor specimens cut too close.
I got my daughter to kindergarten; what about sixth grade?
About the poet:
Colleen Fogarty, an associate professor in the University of Rochester Department of Family Medicine, has dabbled in poetry and prose most of her life. Medical school temporarily killed her creative muse. In the years since residency, she has published creative work in Health Affairs, The Journal of Family Practice, Family Medicine and Medical Humanities. She practices and teaches writing fifty-five-word stories with colleagues and residents and edits the “55-Word Stories” column for Families, Systems, and Health.
About the poem:
“This poem is about an experience during a teaching session that brought me,
Catching Chickens
Daniel Klawitter
Morphine doesn’t do much for dementia.
I know this because my grandmother
was trying to catch an imaginary chickenÂ
on her deathbed.
Wanting to calm her fevered thrashing,Â
my sister cleverly said: “It’s okay grandma.
I caught the chicken for you.
You can rest now.”
But my grandmother’s faded blue eyesÂ
suddenly sprang wide open, and fixing my surprisedÂ
sister with a stern and lucid glare, declared:
“No you did NOT!”
And I’m still uncertain which came first:Â
our nervous laughter or the shock of her clarity,Â
so unexpected, we almost died.
I guess we all have to catch our own chickens,
before we cross the road and reach that other side.
About the poet:
Daniel Klawitter is an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church and lives in Denver, CO, with his wife and three cats. He has a BA in Religion Studies from the College of Santa Fe, NM, and a Master of Divinity degree from Iliff School of Theology, in Denver. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Sacramental Life, Blue Collar Review, Cyclamens and Swords, The Penwood Review and Read More »
You Don’t Have to Put Your Teeth in for Me
Karen Peacock
He pulled the covers over his shedding skin,
Put a napkin over his phlegm-filled cup
Turned the volume down on the TV
And up in his ear,
Cleared his throat through the foggy mask,
Tipped the seat down to his bedside commode
As he reached for his teeth,
And I said, You don’t have to put your teeth in for me.
About the poet:
Karen Peacock is a board-certified art therapist working on the palliative care unit at the Memphis VA Medical Center. She received her master’s in art therapy from Pratt Institute in 2008.
About the poem:
“This poem was inspired by an experience I had with a patient on the palliative care unit. He seemed to be burdened by the need to present himself in a certain way to me when I entered the room. I wanted to relieve him of this burden and allow him to be as comfortable as possible.”
Poetry editors:
Judy Schaefer and Johanna Shapiro
Â