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Poems
Even Now
Two decades ago, during my first week
as an X-ray tech, I watched a boy die.
He was, thankfully, not a boy I knew
or loved but one I’d gone to X-ray.
Fourteen Months
from your ship in Vietnam.
Love letters.
Six pages in one of them
on the thin Navy stationary,
listing the ways you loved me.
This Is How You Cope With Cancer
Bleach your hair,
get drunk on champagne,
pretend the left and right halves of your face are the exact same,
ignore and deny it, laugh loudly–too loudly,
Questions for the Neurologist
For Richard
If a seizure stops neurons
from communicating,
where should they go afterwards
to get reacquainted?
I Should Have Said No
Can you see this patient today?
His appointment is tomorrow,
he came all the way from Nebraska.
Can you work extra tomorrow,
we are short, just four hours extra?
Would you be able to work Christmas this year?
Flashback
I notice the name on the waiting room
tab; it’s not a remarkable name,
but one I remember
from elementary school
Blue Book
Days before she died
my mother stood in line,
took a picture for a passport—
Walnut Shells and BRCA
If I was going to write a poem,
It would be–
It probably shouldn’t be–
About how much I hate the dog.
The way he licks his paws for hours
In the middle of the night
When the baby is no longer crying.
Things My Wife Left in the ICU
A pacemaker and defibrillator
Sheets pressed hard with suffering
Seven fingers and one arm, gangrenous dead
Unknown liters of blood
Failed kidneys