Issue 11 – Poetry

How do I even live?
When do I start living?
Why do I feel like my life hasn’t started yet?

They asked him if he was feeling okay
after having just donated a unit of blood,
being concerned with his well being
knowing that some bodies act differently
with a change of bodily fluids, especially
with the recent loss of a pint of blood.

The toxic one once told me he avoids me at all costs.
“I wouldn’t be at lunch with you if it wasn’t for our boss.”

A room
And a bed
A man
And alas

A wake
And still waiting
I see you
Half masked

No model’s hands are these—
bony and thin skinned, prominent
blue veins—even when I was young.
My granddaughter studies them
now, with a look that feels familiar

Clinic, bright, Crayola haze,
Goldfish cracked on the floor
Tracing narrative, development’s maze
Make sure toddlers don’t run out the door!

Sometimes they won’t understand,
The choices held in your own hand.
Sometimes they won’t agree, it’s true,
With what you know is best for you.

When a distant star looks back at us
Through its lidless, unblinking eye
Ablaze and indifferent to time
What will it see from what remains?

Every death is different,
every monologue of wind,
every cloud dappled sky,
every spongy trail of moss. 

My mother waved and talked to everyone, laughing 
at the antics of five little girls all dressed up for church.
Then hundreds of people filled her room, mostly couples, 
some of them with children. But all of them loved her

He didn’t know where to stop
so he kept going, kept going,
excising strip after strip,
two millimeters at a time.

Nearing cronehood
I’ve had my share of trauma and tragedy.
Buried loved ones,
my own war wounds.

I expect he’ll come home
from the hospital—thin,

but still barrel-chested.
I’ll nurse him.

I was sitting down to dinner
when you left this earth.

I had just bathed my daughter
and looked at the time.

The hole in my chest,
better than a daily pierce,

my three-headed dock
for tubes.

There is nothing more simple
than how you find your joy.
And not the kind that’s derived
from games or from toys.

“I have nothing more to give. I have run out of gas.”

These were the tragic last words said by a fellow physician before ending it all.

Too busy to think and too strong to cry
Life must keep going, no time to think about why

In the world of “fear of missing out “
I see faces missing out on life
I see eyes filled with emptiness
I see minds constantly at war
I see hearts about to burst

It’s always with me,
A forever companion forged by circumstances not within my control.
Like a rash that lessens in intensity but never fully goes away.
Or a forgotten bruise that hums with pain at the slightest touch.

Living by the hospital I hear
at any hour the helicopter
lifting someone in or out.

a Lion sleeps
so others may know peace

I promise you that I’ll never arrive
at an imperfect conclusion. I will tell you,
this new Vraylar
is making me feel things I haven’t felt
in twenty-seven years.

When I think about it, I lose my breath.
I feel like the weight of the world is crushing my chest into my spine.

In a quiet classroom where science meets soul,
A guide and lifelong learner presides,
Weaving tales of anatomy with threads of compassion,
Each lesson a stitch in the fabric of care.

Skin—simple, yet complex.
Pigment—oh, why the rage?

Britney gloves up and wonders
if she has a taco seasoning packet
in her kitchen cabinet where she stores
her spices and her sanity while doing twelves
at the nursing home.