- Home
- /
- Poems
Poems
Chirality
Stacy Nigliazzo
I see myself, always
through a stark looking glass
the fun house view of my own faceÂ
reflected in the eyes of my patients–
tangled in the bleeding strands
that line the gray sclera of the meth addict
drowning in the pooling ink that splits
the swelling pupil of the hemorrhagic stroke
swimming in the antibiotic slather
that blurs the newborn’s first gaze–
my clouded countenance,
ever present–
slipping even through parched flesh
along the steely glide of the angiocath
glistening in the fluid bag
of intravenous medication
glaring backÂ
from the sliding metal siderail–
twelve hours streaming from my skin
like an open wound in the scrub sink
face to face
in the soap-splattered mirror–
only then,Â
do I look away.
About the poet:
Stacy Nigliazzo is an ER nurse and a lifelong poet. Her work has been featured in Pulse–voices from the heart of medicine, Creative Nursing, American Journal of Nursing, Blood and Thunder and The International Journal of Healthcare & Humanities. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University and is a 2006 recipient of the Elsevier Award for Nursing Excellence.
About the word:
Chirality refers to the quality of some objects that cannot be superimposed
Dissolution
Jocelyn Jiao
the articles went first.
then the pronouns, the verbs,
nouns. they melted away, leavingÂ
only memories of warmth
cradled by salivary glands.
adjectives flutter behindÂ
my front teeth, ready for flight.
only adverbs remain,
curled beneath my tongue–
yawning, drowsy:
the softest words of vocabulary.
the lilt of my voice has left too,
soapy Californian vowels
scrubbed clean.Â
when i speak to my mother,
she complains of my consonants,
how they have begunÂ
to iron out cadences, climbÂ
over inflections, rideÂ
them into deep sand. she says
only my whisper remains whole.
but not for long;
already the throat whistles.
it all started at your
bedside, when your lipsÂ
were parted, straining
to form one first, final word.
a sudden embrace of coldÂ
concrete made you into
some bright thing with eyes
translucent, gasping
for the comfort of
water, empty and clear–
when ebullienceÂ
once spilled from your lips
as a sun warms an earth.
do you see? words are meantÂ
for creatures of air. i have no use for them;
even fish can sing.
gently, carefully, tenderly,
night arrives; it pivots and
provides no answer. i feel your nameÂ
coil in my mouth, watchÂ
as it ebbs
Third Party
Mary E. Moore
Tipping forward to escape
the wheelchair’s confines, the ancient one
pleads with her feet, “Go home.”
It’s her companion who volunteersÂ
the Chief Complaint: “Ever since her stroke,
Mother’s back seems to hurt.
Her doctors say there’s nothing can be done,Â
but I thought that perhaps a specialist ….”
She strokes the old woman’s shoulders.Â
“Does it hurt here, or there, or if I touch this?”Â
My fingers probe among birdish bones.
Ignoring me, the patient whimpers, “Home.”
When the daughter’s eyes register pain, I say,
“I’ll inject this spot near her sacroiliac joint.
It may provide relief, in any case do no harm.”
I fill in the charge sheet attached to the chart.
Low back pain. Trigger point injection.Â
Return PRN. But how should this be billed?
With the old woman’s medical insurance?
With the daughter’s?
Or should I pay for this one?
_______________
Editor’s Note: PRN is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase pro re nata, which in English means “as needed.”
About the poet:
Mary E. Moore earned a PhD as an experimental psychologist, but after working in a hospital, she decided to study for an MD. She became a rheumatologist, ultimately heading the division of rheumatology at Albert Einstein
Sleep Hygiene
Daniel Becker
Outline the night and all its objects
in black magic marker.
The world through closed eyes
needs textureÂ
the way tires need tread,Â
brains need wrinkles, and hypnosis
needs the power of suggestion–
traction, surface area, and control
might also apply to a cat
buried alive underneath the sheets;Â
if so, don’t forget the one on top.
Stay up for several nights before
the night you plan to sleep.
Oil the ceiling fan.
True or false: the bladder
is on a separate circuit?
Don’t eat in bed, especially chips.
Snoring + sleep apnea + restless legs
+ hemorrhoids + lumbago =
the human condition. The winter itch
as well would be unfair.
Use pillows to solve or suppress all of the above,
a pillow shaped like the horizon
or the supine profile of your partner, or even betterÂ
a partner who won’t mind being used as a pillow–
together you become the mountains and their clouds,Â
between the two of you a hidden canyon,
lost in your slopes there are deep limestone caves,Â
hot springs, the occasional tremorÂ
of tectonic plates and knees.
About the poet:
Daniel Becker practices and teaches general internal medicine (an endangered specialty) at
Grandmother
Elizabeth Kao
Today, her head is spinning, just like yesterday,
And the day before that. She is dizzy, experiencing
pain we can’t know unless our heads have hurt like
she hurts now. All she wants is to lie down, and
when we tell her she just woke up, she says she
can’t sleep, because we don’t understand that
she’s not concerned with the sleeping. She’s the
same with food, telling us everything tastes bad,
merely eating to keep from being hungry.
She felt nothing to be worth doing after the fence fell,
just another part of a neglected house, but not
so neglected as to scream injustice to the world.
No one would mind that she did nothing, nor
would she–or more accurately, she didn’t care.
So she turned inward, after seventy-three years of
War, raising a daughter and two sons, watching the
grandchildren for them, then left alone because
she seemed strong, for their convenience.
Tomorrow she will get up, eat breakfast, and sit
in her chair. By the afternoon, she will lie down in
her bed again, staring into space, wishing the pain
but not-pain will go away. And we blame a
chemical imbalance and wonder whether we
The Disabled Boat
Steve Gunther-Murphy
Drifting on the sea of disease
in a cardboard boat,
never knowing when the slash
of a spinal eel
will lunge from its coral-bone cave
and cut through
the threads
of a once dancing ankle
or the push of a thigh
singing race or run.
Waiting without wanting–
as the slap of a wave
against the paper-thin stern
then bow
brings on the storm
that pummels every movement
until you slip into a coma of the wind;
your sails ripped from the mainstay
and the tar between the rails
yelling like the death of a two-year-old child.
You wake weeksÂ
later
and notice
that your keel is gone;
your body shakes like a rock cod against
the pith of the boat’s floor
with the hook deep in your gill;
making you talk in slow motion
and without air.
Who wants to live this life
of a shadow fish,
pulled from the depths of who you were
and gutted of simple motions
or the ability to sing glee from your gullet?
This is not the space I am.
This is not the blue
Triptych for John
Yun Lan
Part I: The first time I saw you
I met JohnÂ
withoutÂ
John,Â
without introduction.
Cold,
cold,
cold hand.
Part II: Cadaver as Decapod
John was surely a hermit crab, having four small limbs to anchor the body and six long
limbs to advance it. He gathered sea anemones on his back, and weeds in his spiny beard. He bore
stellate scars, the digitated marks of five pointed teeth. There was a constellation of them, surely
from the care of blue spined urchins. The urchins couldn’t make him stay. Did they evict him orÂ
had he just outgrown his home?
Surely, his soft belly was turned out to the brine, the ocean full of predators. In each eye of
many lenses, what did he see? Was he afraid to scuttle from this white ribbed shell to the larger?
Perhaps not. He trusted he could replace his old limbs. He could carry anemones to protect him.
He would fear neither octopus, nor fellow crabs, nor stars.Â
We can pick at the questions, we each with ten limbs: sharp scissors, blunt scissors, olive
point probe, teasing wooden handled straight needle, thumb forceps, “fitted teeth” tissue forceps
with 1×2 jaws,
Depression Session
Abby Caplin
Â
The chopped apple of her father’s eye,
She tastes the grapes of her mother’s drunken wrath
The barely visible slivers of silver-tongued almond
Needle her intestines as she savors
The seedless watermelon of fruitless friendships,
And endures the hard rindÂ
Of a body gone awry,Â
To be chewed and chewed until swallowed or
Spat out. A salad of sorts
Surrounded by lemons
Home-grown, organic, bitter
And full of juice. She brings me a tough
Clear plastic bag filled with them
To our session.
“They’re the last of the season,” she tells me.
I pray this is true,
While at home, I pore through cookbooks,Â
Searching for yet another recipe.Â
About the poet:
Abby Caplin MD MA practices mind-body medicine and counseling in San Francisco. She helps people living with chronic medical conditions to lead empowered and vibrant lives, reclaiming their wholeness despite illness (www.abbycaplinmd.com). Abby also offers a weblog, Permission to Heal, for people who are “up in the middle of the night or down in the middle of the day” because of illness.
About the poem:
When sitting with clients, I hold the space to hear
In the Pediatric Ward
In this forest of tubes and bottles,
Children wander in sleep.
A dying bird drops
From the corner of my eye.
The night nurse floats through paths
Tending the rooted tubes,
Weighing the pause between breaths.
In the dark, a man’s voice
Stuns like a hunter’s gun.
We wait for dawn.
Last night we cried–four worn children
Facing their walls, and I,
Handing out animal crackers.
Willow’s bones are flaking
John’s eye refuses light
Paige’s ears close up and
Something is eating the soft parts of
Adam’s knee.
We know these things and we cry.
The children force the beds to do acrobatic tricks.
They’ve decorated the sheets with urine, gum, and ice cream.
Shrieking, they dribble gravy; Collages bloom on the floor.
They glue flies to the walls, punch holes in dolls and blankets.
The children are not civilized, and the women have left off makeup.
After the baths, the doctors
Visit their explanations
Upon the numbered beds.
They know about bones, eyes, ears,
For they’ve inspected the bodies.
They