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Catching Chickens
Daniel Klawitter
Morphine doesn’t do much for dementia.
I know this because my grandmother
was trying to catch an imaginary chicken
on her deathbed.
Wanting to calm her fevered thrashing,
my sister cleverly said: “It’s okay grandma.
I caught the chicken for you.
You can rest now.”
But my grandmother’s faded blue eyes
suddenly sprang wide open, and fixing my surprised
sister with a stern and lucid glare, declared:
“No you did NOT!”
And I’m still uncertain which came first:
our nervous laughter or the shock of her clarity,
so unexpected, we almost died.
I guess we all have to catch our own chickens,
before we cross the road and reach that other side.
About the poet:
Daniel Klawitter is an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church and lives in Denver, CO, with his wife and three cats. He has a BA in Religion Studies from the College of Santa Fe, NM, and a Master of Divinity degree from Iliff School of Theology, in Denver. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Sacramental Life, Blue Collar Review, Cyclamens and Swords, The Penwood Review and Read More »
You Don’t Have to Put Your Teeth in for Me
Karen Peacock
He pulled the covers over his shedding skin,
Put a napkin over his phlegm-filled cup
Turned the volume down on the TV
And up in his ear,
Cleared his throat through the foggy mask,
Tipped the seat down to his bedside commode
As he reached for his teeth,
And I said, You don’t have to put your teeth in for me.
About the poet:
Karen Peacock is a board-certified art therapist working on the palliative care unit at the Memphis VA Medical Center. She received her master’s in art therapy from Pratt Institute in 2008.
About the poem:
“This poem was inspired by an experience I had with a patient on the palliative care unit. He seemed to be burdened by the need to present himself in a certain way to me when I entered the room. I wanted to relieve him of this burden and allow him to be as comfortable as possible.”
Poetry editors:
Judy Schaefer and Johanna Shapiro
What You Were Wearing
Theta Pavis
They handed me your clothes
the winter boots,
the dark, folded jeans in their
impossible size 5.
I put them in my trunk,
then drove around
orbiting your hospital like a
satellite sister.
Restricted Parking
Daniel Becker
In silhouette, in pantomime, in slow motion,
she’s dropping him off, but instead of
a see-you-later kiss, they slap palms, high fives,
except they miss–
twice the sound of one hand clapping–
and there they go again: arms raised, hands poised,
holding then un-holding their applause
as they deliver unto one another. Meanwhile,
that’s my space they linger over.
A kiss is just a kiss, but this
is a circuit to complete, an orbit to repeat,
a moment that needs time
the way a couplet needs to rhyme.
Parting is to parking as sweet sorrow is to sour,
and more so–trust me–if they’re here tomorrow.
About the poet:
Daniel Becker practices and teaches internal medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine where, he says, “I am one of the few faculty who can’t complain about parking. I have a primo space.”
About the poem:
“I have a soft spot for wives dropping husbands off, husbands dropping wives off and partners dropping partners off, and for that moment of separation, so ripe with promise.”
Poetry editors:
Judy Schaefer and Johanna Shapiro
Elixir of Love
Howard Stein
(with apologies to Gaetano Donizetti and gratitude to Helen Fisher)
Oh dopamine! Elixir of love!
Beloved catecholamine neurotransmitter,
Child of the hypothalamus–
To you I owe all passion.
In you are all the wiles of Venus,
The drunken orgies of Dionysus.
When I fall in love,
It is you, phantom brew,
Whom I truly cherish.
My beloved in flesh
Is only a stand-in
For the biochemistry between us.
Oh dopamine! Sly Trickster!
You are crueler than Narcissus!
It is not even my self,
But my chemicals,
Whom I most adore.
About the poet:
Howard F. Stein PhD, a medical and psychoanalytic anthropologist, is professor and special assistant to the chair in the department of family and preventive medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he has taught since 1978. His most recent book is In the Shadow of Asclepius: Poems from American Medicine, with a foreword by Jack Coulehan MD.
About the poem:
The inspiration for this tongue-in-cheek poem comes from Helen Fisher’s essay “The Madness of the Gods,” which appeared in the January 2011
Job Loss
Risa Denenberg
I’m no longer part of this operation.
I skulk back into hospital to hand over my name badge–
worn every workday for 12 years. Messy shame shines
on my face like spinach stuck between incisors.
It’s noon, people jam every hall, every sluggish line,
there are no smiles for me. I don’t want to meet the gaze
of anyone I know.
I reflect upon peaceable Christmas shifts,
ham and mashed potatoes in the cafeteria, 3 AM.
Passing comrades in corridors, news matters
only to the extent it might toss a tragedy
onto our shore. Ours is no longer
the operative concept.
Task done, on to another line to return my dog-eared
parking pass. Next stop, cashier, five dollar refund.
Finally in my car, I lean out the window,
and hand the voucher to a parking attendant.
I am holding back tears now. Damn, I’ll miss this place.
Take care, he says. First kind words all day.
About the poet:
Risa Denenberg is an aging hippie currently living in Tacoma, Washington. She earns her keep as a nurse practitioner and freelance medical writer. Recent poems with health-related
Cardiography
Norma Smith
How the electrical impulse
begins in the small part
of the heart and provokes
the pumping
of the necessary
fluid, which will carry everything
we need
to live, everything
we can’t do without
those impulses
carried forward,
Carried down,
around this body’s desire
to liveand move/about
a spark
in a small place.
About the poet:
Norma Smith has lived and worked in Oakland, California, for the better part of forty years. She has worked in hospitals her entire adult life, including a few years as an EKG monitor technician in an intensive care unit.
About the poem:
“This poem was written during the period leading up to my mother’s death from heart failure. I love how the body and its physiology lend themselves to metaphor, and how a line of poetry can illuminate that and help us see the whole person, the whole life, even as we’re focused on the body’s functioning in the moment.”
Poetry editors:
Judy Schaefer and Johanna Shapiro
Witnessing Consent for an Autopsy
Patty Bertheaud Summerhays
“They just cut the abdomen like an operation, look in and sew him up. No one will know.”
I know the inside story–the body parts,
the heart, brain, liver, lungs,
kidney, spleen, bowel, and bladder
sliced on a cutting board
like loaves of bread.
The coroner donning a butcher’s apron
splattered with blood from the last
scrape of blade over bone,
slipping off the scalp like a mask.
The eyes stopping him
like the end of sentences until
he doesn’t feel the frown of brow–
anger as he drills to its roots.
Emotions leaving both men
with a grasp of brain.
A slice of brain placed in formaldehyde
jiggles like a thought trying to collect its thoughts.
Every organ shredded and a piece
saved until the jar is filled with
a body of its own.
The leftovers gathered
into a plastic bag and placed
back into the body
like a well-kept secret.
A secret longing for a slip
of the tongue.
About the poet:
Patty Bertheaud Summerhays received her MFA in poetry from George Mason University in 1991. She worked as an intensive-care nurse in hospitals in the northeastern U.S. and as a nurse and ESL teacher
Escape to HuHot
Jennifer Frank
Hunched, shriveled, pinched
Enclosed in the metal prison of the wheelchair
You long to be free, unencumbered
By the oxygen tube connecting you to life
Each visit with me brings worse news
Creatinine up, red cells down
Carbon dioxide rising, oxygen falling
You have a medication deficiency
Once you were adventurous
Living life on the edge
For your generation,
You defied expectation
Now you are ending like
Everyone Else.
Hospital-home-hospital-rehab
Home-hospital-nursing home
Death is next
Your passions now are distilled into
Shopping at Walmart
Lunch at HuHot Mongolian Grill
I have never been
While I recite the monotony
End-of-life care
Advise hospice
Encourage compliance
Lecture about smoking
Offering nothing you want or desire
I imagine
Casting off the tubes
Tossing the meds
Lifting you from the prison-chair
Offering you my arm
As we escape to HuHot
About the poet:
Jennifer Frank recently transitioned from academic practice to full-time clinical practice with ThedaCare Physicians in Neenah, Wisconsin. “I write, in part, to help process the often difficult emotions that accompany being a family physician. It is a way to honor my patients and