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Poems
november
Allie Gips
tucked into the chaos of the emergency department
is a single room with stirrups, a floor spackled with blood,
& a woman whose face betrays nothing.
the bodies of all those i have touched who have then
died pile before me like so many broken eggshells
so i stand against the wall to distance myself from her
& her cramping uterus, her dark red clots that fall
like sleet, her blank eyes that stare strictly at the ceiling
while we busy ourselves with machinery: the speculum,
Imperfect Farewells
Judy Schaefer
I was not with my mother when she died, her heart bursting
against her ribs, screaming for a violent release from her chest
I listened, ear to phone: Â Â Â Â Â nothing-more-could-be-done
     I recall her now, prayer petals of morning’s first red rose, the perfect
     Mezzo-soprano of a summer evening’s lullaby, an open window to song
Clinical colleagues reported massive myocardial infarction
I reported that I was an orphan
She Who Shows Up
Dianne Avey
She who shows up
to guide tiny fingers
toward ripening blackberries
and the spiral
of a moonsnail shell
Late summer treasures
She who shows up
with tea and bread
all the time in the world
to walk hand in small hand
My son beautifully distracted
The Bodies Green and Blue
Krupa Harishankar
Reflections from the anatomy lab
overlooking Central Park
Reluctant, the same green
light over that copse of trees
and sheet of lawn glares and
bends through the lifted-open
cage of ribs, branched veins,
and cragged spine. Exposed,
my hands appear on the gurney
as a child’s. The one acrossÂ
needled grass applauds small
palms, not distant, but sound
mutes here. Joy does not carry
heft like limbs of the corpse
before me. In layers of blue
latex, the uniform tint of a pond
rendered from afar–its depth
imprecise–I glove and delve
into the viscera, leaving this
abdomen a cavity. I wonder
what hands have touched you.
Schrödinger’s CT
Barry Saver
To be
And not to be…
Indeterminacy
May not be
So bad
Without this scan
We won’t know
If you’re living
Like the rest of us
Or dying
On a more compressed schedule
Once it’s done
You’ll be a zero or a one
Are you sure you want to know?
No Prospect
His uneasy truce with cancer
was shattered by
the seizure,
awakening confused
in a side-railed bed.
He lies quiet, astonished
by the speed of change,
still hearing echoes of
his home.
I sit silently by his side
as he reads the ceiling tiles,
the monitors,
OT
Maggie Westland
I have a dance routine all in my hands, with steps
To take to make them bend again, at least to stall
The stalk of past abuse, of joint and sinew overuse
This jig more intricate, more complex, more diffuse
Than simple shuffles of the well-shod foot, requires
Both patience brute and gentle force to stake its worth
I dance five times each day twice daily bathe in wax
Or wrap socks full of rice from wrist to finger’s tip
Twist, push, press on in rhythmic jerks response
Lightheaded
Ellen Cole
Lightheaded, as I so often am
when leukemia fevers sweep over me,
I fail to notice when I begin to rise,
feet bidding the floor goodbye,
I say, Brian, but you,
your eyes shut,  Â
Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
whispering in your earphones,
do not see me wink out the window
like lamp light, the lawn glittered
with glow-worms, echoed above
by the stern slow music of stars.
In the Honda Service Area
Laura Foley
We’re sitting knee-to-knee
while her car gets new brakes, mine new fluids.
She discusses hip replacement,
in warrior-like detail, with a friend,
each slice to flesh, how skin is spread
from bone, the pain she’s in, her plans when she gets home,
the miracle of titanium. I’m trying not to hear,