Saturday, August 10, 2019

poem

Poem #6

This one doesn’t have to be about sickness.
I don't need another ode to chromosomes
or anaerobic metabolism,
a sad dirge about suspicious adrenalomas.
I don't want to write anymore
about the provenance of dark stains
on my blue scrubs,
the strange odors that linger on my palms.  
The post call anguish of alone.


Doctor so and so has written another poem.
Look, he’s alluded to lungs,
the last gasps of life.
The fearful wide eyed last days gaze.
The true heart that lives in a cage.
Must he go on like this?

Look he’s switching gears, 
he’s describing a beautiful woman;
perhaps he had once operated on her.
it's always about that.
Maybe he’s wistful and older and tired
of scalpels and salves and bandages:
Almost done here.
Let me wrap this up.
Shower twice a day.
Apply this ointment.
Take this for the pain
that comes later.
Kiss me when you find me like this.
Hold my hand, later
when you see me like this. 
Ask me about all the mysteries
I've already dreamed the answers to.
Be right here at time o’clock.

I've stopped writing about chromosomes
and sicknesses and unbalanced hormones.
This is a lump
I find in your breast.
No, no, no this is my hand against your heart
that rises and falls in your chest.
It swells like a mass
without edges but
I swear I can feel something.
I want to describe it precisely
using the proper terminology;
supple, caudal, infero-lateral.
I want to classify what this is.
I am reaching  for your heart.
I have been flailing for your heart
and so this poem for your heart.
My love, I cannot speak
for the lump in my throat,
and for all that's beneath
the heaviness of this white coat
obscures the sounds that escape,
an exhalation of garbled words
for the time we have lost.
for the time we have left.

The doctor will see you now.
(I’m sorry I am so late)
The doctor is ready now;
he is sorry he is so late.

8/10/19


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lovely poem. Buckeye surgeon got my attention! GO BUCKS!!! But seriously, a lovely poem that speaks volumes. Found this on the MDVIP site, fyi. Have a great day!