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      • Issue 6 – Poetry
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  1. University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
  2. Medicine and Meaning
  3. Issues
  4. Issue Four: Summer/Fall 2021
  5. Issue 4 – Poetry

Issue 4 – Poetry

Issue 4 – Poetry

A Spark in the Dark

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

I am the rose in the desert,
withered for lack of rain.

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40° out of 180 – Song of the Scapula

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

Not even a fourth of possible- that’s all
your arm and you will get without it-
Forty degrees of forward.

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Appointment 4:10

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

She told me that she sat with him
At the dining table.
They had bought some pills,
Had made a pact long ago.

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Noise

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

My mind is noise today.

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Hot, Cold, then Quiet

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

The summer was hot enough
that earthworms in my neighborhood
unfortunate enough to crawl
out of the grass onto the sidewalk
fried into curled bits of brown string.

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Elegy

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

When the night is young, the moon will never fall
or sunrise into day
and for a moment, my thoughts are whole
yet rarely do they stay

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Untitled

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

I want to know one of your secrets
what you dream about at night
who it is you would die for
what you still want from this life

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Hold My Hands Please (A palliative care physician’s reflection)

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

Please hold my hands, she said.
Is this it? Is this where I am going to die?
I am so exhausted.

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Family Tree

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

My roots sink deeper than I know.

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Jenny

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

I think about you often,
My former teacher.
You died while I was
In graduate school.

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Thresholds

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

I thought of thresholds—
intimations of mortality
in the undiscovered country
of lost dreams.

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Gatorade Bones

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

On my midnight pallet lying,
full of dread and stars in my belly,
I count out all the bones
I had broken in my time:

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Waiting For Breakfast in Rehab

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

The angled morning sun
reveals the grimy streaks
on the windows
as I wait for breakfast.

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Through Space and Time

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

There you are beyond my reach,
Separated by space and barred
From my physical greeting.

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The Isolated Room

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

Since midnight,
no place to sleep
just a coffee machine
with no sugar or cream.

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Long Term Care

October 4, 2021 | UAMS Online

How much of me is you,
And you, me?
When I remember the first of us,
It’s just a blur of becoming.

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