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The Best Storyteller Award
Daniel Becker ~
At the clinic retreat everyone gets a prize,
and the Best Storyteller reminds us of those times
a man goes on a journey. Not just any man: Dr. William Osler,
the doctors’ doctor, the professors’ professor, the textbook author,
and this Canadian in Philadelphia crosses the Delaware to Camden
where Walt Whitman, the great American poet, the poet’s poet,
endures fame and poor health.
Every case is supposed to be interesting, but Whitman,
according to Osler, suffered only from what his age could explain
plus or minus the usual slings and arrows,
the wear and tear of gravity,
the side effects and worries,
Where She Will Be
Francie Camper ~
City snow blankets my little mother in her hospital
bed in her bedroom, no wonder she is confused,
pointing to things in the air, on the ceiling that only
she can see. She might be hailing a cab. She raises
her head to tell me, Four members of the Isenberg
family came to visit and one was Mima Ettel,
who is already buried in the plot and she doesn’t
seem to know this. A land of the living and a land
of the dead, why should she have to remember
the difference? We paid a thousand dollars to move
her grandfather’s monument to make room for her.
Remembering the Beginning
Jacqueline Dooley ~
I was unprepared
for the feel of your hair pulling free
with every brushstroke.
I wasn’t up to autumn
from the side of your hospital bed.
It seemed too much
for the universe to ask.
But, like you, I was choiceless
as I drove through November streets
the colors, drained and faded,
like your face when the chemo went in,
reduced to nothing more
than what I was when you were born.
I covered your exposed head.
I tried to stop your tears.
Sutherland Springs
Simin G. Roward ~
What I remember most about that day
is the silence in your eyes
when they rushed you in and how you
only started crying
when the nurse tried to put in an IV
as if the holes made in your body by the
bullets of an automatic rifle
aimed at you at church
and the memory of your mother
dying in the pew
were a pain of a different level
that your beautiful five-year-old heart couldn’t contain
and it took the poke of a small needle for you to
begin to feel human again
and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry we couldn’t save you all
Notes From the Pain Committee Meeting
Pam Kress-Dunn ~
She was always my favorite nurse, her smile
genuine as I took my place at the table, my role
to supply the research and stats they might need
on the floor, or in preop. The chronic migraine
I brought along was my little secret, my inside joke
every time the talk turned to pain scales
and nerve blocks, the bright lights and overheads
nothing I couldn’t live through.
Her quiet story began and I sat up straight, stricken
with a thunderclap only I could hear.
Sometimes, she told us, people wake up before the anesthetic
wears off. They can’t move, can’t talk, can’t even
open their eyes to show me their fear.
Somehow, she knows.
The Look on Your Face
Priscilla Mainardi ~
Your skin pale with worry,
your mouth a straight line,
the fear in your eyes–
all this told me,
more than the nausea,
more than the fact that I couldn’t move my head,
that something was really wrong.
You thought I wouldn’t see.
I looked up at the ceiling,
at its pattern of dots,
white, and brighter white,
that could mean anything, or nothing,
That Is All
Scott Wilson ~
God,
Take her breath, still her heart, and
clean her body out with a spoon.
Wring her spirit in the river and
place her eyes beside the moon.
Fold up her memories in a dresser and
frame her smile in the sky.
Turn up her laughter in the darkness and
let her freckles start to fly.
Smoke her love out with tobacco and
sow her kindness into the seas.
Diffuse her voice upon the mountains and
pollinate her sorrow with the bees.
What’s Left Over
Ruth Bavetta ~
One and a half tubes of smörgåskaviar, most
of a jar of blueberry jam, a full jar of lingonberries.
Four sets of blue plaid pajamas–God forbid
I should have gotten him red. Six pairs
of reading glasses, going back
in five-year increments. Hearing-aid
batteries stashed by the lamp.
Three packages of adult diapers.
Our marriage certificate.
The rest of the morphine.
Home Invasion
Laura Grace Weldon ~
Get out my green mug, round as a pregnant belly.
Casually pour grounds in the filter
despite monitoring devices warning
of an intruder’s presence.
Act normally. Breathe deeply.
Let the cosmic swirl of cream in hot coffee
remind me how small one lifetime is
in an infinite universe. Remember
the Vedas say God’s playfulness is expressed
through perpetual creation and dissolution.
Quell fear. Be peace.
Ignore creaks and groans as intruder
inches closer. Pretend
the future is a given,
as it was before
the diagnosis.