fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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The Waiting Room

What happened to the fish
I ask the receptionist

The plastic seaweed was toxic
She replies with a shrug

So we sit and wait watching
A string of jeweled bubbles rise

To the surface
In the otherwise empty tank

It’s our second visit to the oncologist
Only weeks ago four or five fish

Sashayed back and forth
Like orange and black flags

They seemed content
Devastation is a molecule of plastic

A broken chromosome
A surfacing bubble

Call for Entries​

Pulse Writing Contest​​

"On Being Different"

“I live on the east coast of Australia in a small town. Having studied horticulture in Sydney, I went on to marry a New Yorker and study creative writing on Long Island. I am the proud father of two precious young women.”

About the Poem

“My wife died last year of a very rare cancer. The oncologist we visited had nothing for us. COVID had slowed down the wheels of hospitals all over the country, and the cancer had accelerated. I wrote this poem after our second and last appointment. My was fifty-five years old, and the kindest most wonderful person I have ever known.”

Comments

19 thoughts on “The Waiting Room”

  1. I’m so very sorry about the loss of your wife. Thank you for sharing this beautiful, poignant poem that came from the ordeal.

  2. It is a beautiful and devastating poem. Your loss is huge. And words are inadequate. Your metaphor speaks powerfully. Thank you and I hope that you are finding ways to integrate grief with the reasons for still living.

  3. The loss of the fish, your wife is devastating. It nails the pain of loss.

    There is also something transcendently beautiful about the way you share her journey of suffering.

    May you and your family find some ease and comfort in memories of her.

  4. Barbara DeCoursey Roy

    The words of each line of this poem are “a string of jeweled bubbles.” Devastating and exquisitely tender.

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