doctor poems – Pulse

Neighbor

Christopher Schifeling September 6, 2024 1 Comment

I first notice the fog, unexpected
on the inside of a windshield,
a question mark
along the run-on sentence of parked cars, and,
with a snap, you are there,
wrapped in a bag in the back
seat with parking patrol on the prowl,
but they’re not so keen, blindly
driving by in a kind ignorance,

and I don’t see you either,
only your warm breath
caught at the glass,
and all I have are commas,

Doctor Becomes Patient

Galya Lodish August 16, 2024 10 Comments

The diagnosis is here
I knew it was coming
But did not think it would arrive this soon
“You’re very young to have it” the doctor said
My bones brittle, already
At age 50
I feel fragile

Enough

Lynette Lamp April 12, 2024 7 Comments

Her idea of a date is splitting
a six-pack with her husband
Friday nights while milking the cows,
still weary from her day job.
Swollen udders demand attention
twice daily regardless
of her daughter’s ball games,
her mother’s terminal cancer.

Brain Scan

Jenna Le February 9, 2024 5 Comments

I slide into the MRI machine.
Sleds slide downhill, propelled by their own weight;
my movement’s horizontal, made through means

outside of my control: a man in green
scrubs bops a button, turning me to freight
that’s fed into the MRI machine.

And What Is Beautiful

Marta Christov December 29, 2023 3 Comments

if not a healing wound?
toes missing, trans-metatarsal amputation,
remaining tissue puckering deep pink:
raw beauty in disfigurement.

He shows me pictures on his cell phone,
the toes felt doused with molten metal.
Before debridement: brown-black,
the foot decaying like a leaf in winter.

Gold and Iron

Carol Scott-Conner August 4, 2023 4 Comments

They add colloidal gold
to glass, sometimes,
to make that ruby color. They heat it,

render it liquid and viscous, and
when it is just right,
the master glassblower blows into it,

Rainier

Zeynep B. Uzumcu June 2, 2023 3 Comments

Apparition of ice and stone:
How it swells above the highway,
over small cars and upturned eyes.

It sits on high. Pristine
and remote from me,
exalts me and cuts me
down to size.

The Weight of the Soul

Jack Coulehan October 14, 2022 12 Comments

Dr. MacDougall measured the weight
of a human soul by placing a man
on a sensitive scale just before death
and weighing him a second time after.

Our Hands

Tabor Flickinger August 12, 2022 4 Comments

Braid a child’s hair in precise beaded rows

And shave a scalp just enough to access
Skin flap, skull, brain, tumor

Fold over a learner’s fingers to guide a needle
This angle here with this much pressure
Slide together into a hidden space

Good Enough

Carol Scott-Conner April 29, 2022 No Comments

Three weeks after my mastectomy, I traveled south.
I slung my carry-on bag crosswise over my body
and jostled my way through the airport, the bag
in front of me, to form a barrier, protecting my incision.
I let my arm rest on the bag,
to take the tension off the shoulder.

Dying Is Ugly

Henry Schneiderman February 4, 2022 15 Comments

Bang my shins, my temple on the gritty wall
Of Charlie’s deathbed
Where we do not wrest the truth
But beg him Let us change the (piss-stenched) sheets.
He will not go for tests, insists, denial overarching

Continent

Jenna Le January 14, 2022 3 Comments

Contact: from the Latin for touch.
Isolate: from the Latin for island.

Because your breath had touched mine,
I was obliged to metamorphose
into a separate land mass,
to wear a collar of brine
like a heavy gurgling yoke

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

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

Tag: doctor poems

Neighbor

Doctor Becomes Patient

Enough

Brain Scan

And What Is Beautiful

Gold and Iron

Rainier

The Weight of the Soul

Our Hands

Good Enough

Dying Is Ugly

Continent

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

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

Tag: doctor poems

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