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My Friend the Scholar Comes at Last to Attend His Father

Norbert Hirschhorn March 29, 2013 1 Comment

Norbert Hirschhorn

He considered the wasted moult of a once
large, ferocious creature: mouth agape,
muscles twitching with every rattled breath.

Agapé–my friend the scholar marveled
at the homograph, and the thing that feasted
on his father. He laid a futon at the foot

of the high white bed, some books, a laptop,
a thermos. Nearby, an emesis basin,
dentures, bedpan, glass half-full of beaded water.

Third Party

Mary E. Moore July 16, 2010 No Comments

Mary E. Moore

Tipping forward to escape
the wheelchair’s confines, the ancient one
pleads with her feet, “Go home.”

It’s her companion who volunteers
the Chief Complaint: “Ever since her stroke,
Mother’s back seems to hurt.

Her doctors say there’s nothing can be done,
but I thought that perhaps a specialist ….”
She strokes the old woman’s shoulders.

“Does it hurt here, or there, or if I touch this?”
My fingers probe among birdish bones.
Ignoring me, the patient whimpers, “Home.”

When the daughter’s eyes register pain, I say,
“I’ll inject this spot near her sacroiliac joint.
It may provide relief, in any case do no harm.”

I fill in the charge sheet attached to the chart.
Low back pain. Trigger point injection.
Return PRN. But how should

Sleep Hygiene

Daniel Becker June 25, 2010 No Comments

Daniel Becker

Outline the night and all its objects
in black magic marker.

The world through closed eyes
needs texture
the way tires need tread,
brains need wrinkles, and hypnosis
needs the power of suggestion–
traction, surface area, and control
might also apply to a cat
buried alive underneath the sheets;
if so, don’t forget the one on top.

Stay up for several nights before
the night you plan to sleep.

Oil the ceiling fan.

True or false: the bladder
is on a separate circuit?

Don’t eat in bed, especially chips.

Snoring + sleep apnea + restless legs
+ hemorrhoids + lumbago =

the human condition. The winter itch
as well would be unfair.

Use pillows to solve or suppress all of the above,
a

Depression Session

Abby Caplin April 2, 2010 No Comments

Abby Caplin

The chopped apple of her father’s eye,
She tastes the grapes of her mother’s drunken wrath
The barely visible slivers of silver-tongued almond
Needle her intestines as she savors
The seedless watermelon of fruitless friendships,
And endures the hard rind
Of a body gone awry,
To be chewed and chewed until swallowed or
Spat out. A salad of sorts
Surrounded by lemons
Home-grown, organic, bitter
And full of juice. She brings me a tough
Clear plastic bag filled with them
To our session.
“They’re the last of the season,” she tells me.
I pray this is true,
While at home, I pore through cookbooks,
Searching for yet another recipe.

About the poet:

Abby Caplin MD MA practices mind-body medicine and counseling

Death at a Distance

Edwin Gardiner February 19, 2010 No Comments

Your message hung on the phone line

like his striped shirt blowing
in the last wind of his life:
softly and with dignity.
His facial bones,
and body contours
he allowed to be chiseled
to an insubstantial sharpness
by the flow of chemicals and
the relentless labor of his disease:
both polished his body to dust.
Your life that has breathed that dust
for years will, someday,
carry it to the stars,
where it belongs.

About the poet:

Edwin Gardiner, a urologist, was in private practice for thirty years in San Diego; he did his surgical training at UCSF and NYU-Bellevue Medical Center. “I’ve written since my undergraduate days at

A Certain Anesthesia

Arthur Ginsberg May 30, 2008 No Comments

Arthur Ginsberg

Exhaustion sets in by day’s end
when the old Pakistani woman
hobbles into my office.
Raccoon eyes underscore the pain
she feels in her left leg. More cavalier
than a Hippocratic disciple should be,
I pull up her djellaba* to expose
the dark, tumescent flesh of her calf
monogrammed by serpiginous veins.
I am too aggressive with the needles
that search for the source
of the white-hot poker lancinating
from ankle to groin, muscular infidelity.

She is stoic,
so well schooled in cruelty
that even I pretend not to see
the slight jiggle of her jaw, enough
to tell me I have crossed

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

My Friend the Scholar Comes at Last to Attend His Father

Third Party

Sleep Hygiene

Depression Session

Death at a Distance

A Certain Anesthesia

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

My Friend the Scholar Comes at Last to Attend His Father

Third Party

Sleep Hygiene

Depression Session

Death at a Distance

Medecins sans frontieres — Liberia, 2003

A Certain Anesthesia

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