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Reflections From a Senior Citizen

Dorothy Kligerman January 8, 2010 No Comments

I used to talk of fun and games

Now I talk of aches and pains.
I used to paint the town bright red
Now at nine I am in bed.

I used to dream of lovers bold.
Now if truth be told
The only men who interest me
Are those with a medical degree.

“Why,” you ask, “have they such clout?”
Well–we have so much to talk about:
There’s my arthritis and stenosis,
Hypertension, scoliosis.

In a cozy room, alone, we chat.
We never have a lover’s spat.
So keep your handsome Romeos
I’ll always take those medicos!

About the poet:

I am ninety-five years old, widowed, with three

Babies

Elizabeth Szewczyk December 18, 2009 No Comments

She tells me she wants to have a baby,

my daughter who was my baby
so many years ago.

Everything comes back to me–
the waiting, the wanting, the whisking
off to baby-earth, that angelic place,
passing through life
with its normal sounds, smells, and sights,
into the realm of women’s starlight, bright
as Polaris, a celestial universe of power,
revolving so far away
that only women with growing
babies under their swollen, milk-gorged breasts
could inhabit this land.

Just for a moment, I want to have a baby again.
My aging body with its downhill breasts
and lost uterus aches to soar to that planet.

Cleft

Jon Neher November 27, 2009 No Comments

As Caroline was born

the doctor saw
the split
from lip to nose–
purple rimmed,
going down deep–
Deep enough
to hurt
generations.

And the imperfect doctor,
tired of wounds
tired of divisions,
saw the small
wholeness
Chose that moment
Chose tenderness
saying simply,
She is beautiful.

And the imperfect mother,
tired of pain,
held her child,
touched the tiny,
ragged face
Chose that moment
Chose acceptance
crying softly,
She is beautiful.

About the poet:

Jon Neher is clinical professor of family medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle and associate director of the Valley Medical

My Evidence

Cortney Davis November 6, 2009 No Comments

When I saw dust settling,

the road black and gritty,

and noticed the air
shimmering as it lowered closer to the earth

like a soft blanket suffocating
the damp September

mornings that had morphed seamlessly
into November’s

crowded table
of berries, sweets, and yellow corn,

just before the hospital
phoned to say that Mother had called my name,

familiar syllables
caught in her throat,

I’d already detected her leaving
in my own body

and so while she paused
at the end of her journey,

which was also the beginning,
I rushed to her,

hurrying
as

Reading Entrails

Kenneth P. Gurney October 16, 2009 No Comments

Sugar poisons

ruin your blood,
runs your legs
while you sleep,
revs your irregular
heart beat.

Maple sap, tree ripened
orange, dark chocolate,
honey dripping
from the comb
are not viable substitutes;
only abstinence
and the eleven day
skin crawl withdrawal.

Or an asymmetrical death:
one part at a time,
organ by organ,
memory fog,
the surgeons gnawing
like rats
at the leper’s limbs.

About the poet:

Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM, where he hosts a poetry salon at his home twice a month. His poetry mostly appears on the Web. His has two self-published poetry books, Writers’

First Cadaver

Shanna Germain September 25, 2009 No Comments

He presses the Sawzall to

her chest, slices skin to bone.
This unzipping of skin does
not stop our breaths–we’re used to

invasion of the body,
the way his fingers pinch
into her pockets as though
for a cloth or a quarter.

Grasping bone ends, he spreads
her pinkish ribs, not breaking
a sweat, to find what he’s come
for: such a small thing, really,

he plucks it easily.
Fingers bloodied, he holds out
the heart to us: take it, see,
it is no bigger than your fist.

About the poet:

Shanna Germain is a poet by nature, a short-story writer by the skin

Chemo Patient

Geoffrey Bowe September 4, 2009 No Comments

She tried

To imagine herself dead
As she lay on her bed
Staring at the ceiling
With chemotherapy
Seeping into her veins
But she couldn’t
She could only think
Of her husband
And her children
And how they had laughed
When her hair had fallen out.

In order to die
Everything had to stop
Her heart
Her brain
The blood surging
Through her arteries
But she could not imagine it.
Everything
Seemed to be running so well.

She was not frightened of dying
But she had always
Looked forward to the future
And now it seemed
There may

Johnny Doe

Yvonne M. Estrada August 14, 2009 No Comments

Policemen pose like plastic toy soldiers,

point rifle barrels in every direction,
ghetto bird’s spotlight glints off helmets.
Ambulance allowed across yellow tape,
diesel engine grinds up the sharp grade.
In no moon you glow fish white belly up,
streetlamp casts mottled shadows,
your blood a preschool finger painting
smeared on sidewalk.
I am ordered to shear off your slick, soaked
jeans, to smash your chest, beat your heart
for you. Your arms extend savior-like,
needles are pounded into veins,
translucent bags held skyward
like offerings to a life-giving deity,
clear liquid bleeds in, your blood pours out,
three bullet holes versus six-minute
trip to emergency room. How old

Wanting to Be Lovely

Kenneth P. Gurney July 24, 2009 No Comments

Breast budding, spring leaves,

twelve, too young for babies,
she grasps her pillow to her belly,
the smell of the first crocuses,
the last cardinal’s song
echoes from the hawthorn.
The lemons whisper in her ear
before she squeezes, rubs
the rinds on her damp skin,
her hand touches nylon,
lace, a mirror image river,
a windowless desire:
the first stirring of her fingers
between her thighs, the robins’
annual return becomes monthly.

About the poet:

Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM. His poetry mostly appears on the Web, and his two self-published poetry books, Writers’ Block and Greeting Card, are available online. Gurney has

The Limits of Medicine

Frances Wu July 3, 2009 No Comments

I can not change the color of the sky.

The texture of the rain, the distance of a star
must needs be fixed by ancient ritual
unaccepted by our modernity.

I can not change the length of your night.
The number of hours, the days of your life
are set by stern fate, impassive to sighs,
unsympathetic, and cold to your plight.

I can not count the breaths that are left.
Day into day, year into frightened morn,
only you, in your heart can know
the obscurity of the sand that now sifts.

I can not make a single tear move;
Its salt will wend its way to the earth
that calls with an irresistible force,
one that will not soon leave off.

I have

Now a lightness

Fasih Hameed June 12, 2009 No Comments

4:57 am, Sunday

This week went
from caring with hope
for a lucid patient to facing
reality in advocating sanity
to an insane extended
family to haggling with specialists
to giving up time
and again telling Mary
she was dying and then watching
her cling to her lost life like
everyone else to
finally withdrawing all care
except for comfort
and comforting the now lucid family
while the breaths became
distant
and the pauses

prolonged
and everyone
cried, including myself,
when
the last one
left.

It was raining
when they called me. The family
said it just started, right before
the end. Like the sky had opened up

to let her in.

About the poet:

Fasih Hameed, a family physician in Santa Rosa, California, is

Failure to Thrive

Daniel Becker May 22, 2009 No Comments

My matched set of nonagenarians

is almost two hundred years old
and nearing escape velocity.
They are failing to thrive with a vengeance.

They have outlived everyone
except the powers of attorney
for whom they are a source of consternation.

Their constipation is prune-proof.
They scratch where it itches till it bleeds
and call on me to staunch the bleeding.

They can’t recall our earnest conversations.
Adult Protective Services
elicits

their indignation reflex. They ready, aim
and fire
their walkers at the social worker.

Pride goes before their falls.
They hoard.
In their home every room is attic.

Neither odor nor order matters.
Thank goodness you’re here they say
and then berate me.

It’s true.
I don’t know what to do.
I meet the lawyer

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: poems/poetry

Reflections From a Senior Citizen

Babies

Cleft

My Evidence

Reading Entrails

First Cadaver

Chemo Patient

Johnny Doe

Wanting to Be Lovely

The Limits of Medicine

Now a lightness

Failure to Thrive

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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: poems/poetry

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