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Blueberry Picking
Roz Levine
We ran from an outbreak of polio
Abandoned the Bronx for a summer hideaway
In the shadow of the Catskill Mountains
Each day we traipsed craggy trails
Stooped low beneath clear skies
Plucked mounds of dark blues
From bushes bursting with ripe fruit
Filled our baskets to overflow
It should have been all this:
Sunshine on eight-year-old skin
Fresh air on innocent girl soil
Thoughts of jam on toast for breakfast
Happy days of laughs with the family
When anxiety overwhelms the mind
Blueberry picking equates to worries
Of prickly thorns and bee stings
Sunburns and infected blisters
Rattlesnake bites and botulism in jelly jars
Everything, a gravediggers’ paradise
The Eyes Have It
Johanna Shapiro
If you’re lucky
the doctor enthused
these drops will save your sight
Still trying to get my mind around
this new fact
that I was going blind
I asked about side effects
Hardly worth mentioning,
he said
his back already to me
as he noted in his chart
the decline and fall of my vision
A Vitruvian Man
Tabor Flickinger
He marked a copy of da Vinci’s sketch
To map his ailments: drew an arrow from
The eye to cataracts, the feet nerve pain.
The groin said hernia, the navel at
The center of it all colostomy.
He offers up this artifact to his
New doctor: fills the outline with a tale
Of his true flesh unique in variance
From all ideal cosmographies of man.
Birth
Albert Howard Carter III
(for NCC and RAC)
My wife lies in the little room,
tight as a drum, and even more convex.
She breathes hard as the contractions come.
The doctor, some 20 feet away,
shares his lunch with me,
the husband and coach;
My wife, lunchless today,
hears this act of betrayal
and resents (I learn later)
that we are eating cake:
she’s clearly in “transition,”
when even the nicest women
can become cranky.
Groans and wails fill the hall;
The place sounds like a zoo.
Aperture
Martin Kohn
(for Helen)
This openness into
This brightness onto
This bodied and
dis-embodied
sunken-eyed
knowing
This close
and blinking
moment
This shutter stop
goodbye
Your round soft
shoulder pillowed
beneath a feeble
hug
The Lord
“not quite ready”
to take you
even though you
and Trixie your cat
had walked the dark path
to him again
Scarves: a DVD
Holly Zeeb
I watched her
fling and tie
those scarves
so gracefully,
magically,
to adorn
her beautiful
shining head,
as if doves
might flutter forth.
Her steady voice
was gentle,
reassuring,
as if it were
an easy thing
A Sigh on Rounds
Jerald Winakur
White coat, sterile gloves
my instrument dangling
but she finally died
after such a struggle–the young
always struggle so–
I listened to her chest
till it stopped then clicked
off the machine.
It sighed for us all as the air
drained out. And the moon
was still low in the sky
so large, so round–this
is a shape I know well–
and it hung there like a silver disc
auscultating the earth…
But I could no longer listen
as I sat on a night lawn
slowly moistening.
The Cancer Center
Nancy Tune
First impression: New and well appointed,
staffed by friendly people and my favorite, irony.
In the clinic hallway a woman plays a harp.
I have come to learn about the process of
my dying; surely this is meant to shake me
free of dread and make me laugh. It doesn’t, quite.
During treatment: I know where to go,
my focus straight ahead. Walkers,
wheelchairs, frightened people waiting in
the tasteful lobby. Down the stairs
I join a group of lonely people in a
silent prayer to gamma rays and science:
Please, some more time. Do not let us die, yet.
Community Medicine
Kendra Fleagle Gorlitsky
Are you going to take that long with all the patients?
Depends. If they’re really sick, I’ll have to.
I’m just saying…there are a lot waiting.
Well, this one tried to kill herself last year. And today she’s really hurting.
I wanted a full physical, and I heard this is just a check-up, but I’ve been waiting over two hours!
Could you put this gown on, please. What are you worried about?
I can’t find work that doesn’t make me lift, but I can’t lift.
Can you swim?
Never learned.
What was your favorite job?