Volume 10 | 2022
Table of contents
Elemental
Fire
Elegy-Gratitude to the Anonymous
It is apparent that it is time to transition
Illness Narratives
Restitution stories attempt to outdistance mortality by rendering illness
Peering Over the Edge
One Halloween in grade school, my parents solicited the help of my three
In the Shallows
My father was a professor of biology. His children were his first students. He
Blindspotting: The Father and The Imam
The term in the title?
Is There Nothing More That I Can Do? -A short story by a family physician
This story actually begins years before I started practice in my rural
If that’s all there is, my friends
On two separate occasions, an ambulance whisked my wife’s sister from
Colophon
I am not a god who can stare into your soul I am not a priest in a wood confessional my job is to help and I’ll be here by your side try to understand as I pry out points you hide still your life is yours with your friends and loves to quote I …
prior to collapse
Abandoned, but never forgotten
Love Heals
The Hearth
Treatment odyssey
Imposters
The Last Lullaby
How are you doing, Mentally, Caring for COVID patients? The response in my head, A letter, Never read: Mr. L, I didn’t want to learn the dosages of Ivermectin Outside of intended use. Your telehealth provider makes me see red. Your ventilator amplified The Last Lullaby. You loved many. They watch over you. Extubated. Cold.
Bald Eagles and Chemo
I knew it was coming. After my morning walk, I sat down and ran my fingers through my hair—and ended up with a handful. Right on schedule, Day 14 following my first chemo treatment for stage lll inflammatory breast cancer. Taking what remained of my shoulder-length hair and cutting off what I could with a …
Ode to Outpatient Shadowing at the Children’s Hospital
After Kevin Young Praise to animals doodled on intake forms Praise to the rattle of pretzels in Tupperware Praise to stools that spin And to the children that spin them And to walls for launching from Praise to headbands with red bows Civilizing the snarl of unbrushed hair Praise to green trucks that wind up …
Continue reading “Ode to Outpatient Shadowing at the Children’s Hospital”
Glimmer
The desert sun does not shine faintly Its light unwavers at the first glimmer of the dawn No dim perception A simple twinkle becomes a sparkle and then a shimmer No feeble nor intermittent glow Its brightness not subdued at break of day Its luster—steady, brazen as it meets the moon Today recalled this shine—a …
In the waiting room
A person who knows no roof But intimately knows his green tarp A person who lost his friend To the cold last week A person who gives bear hugs And likes to read A person who has not had the chance To wash his jacket since It was fished out of the donation bin This …
I am sorry, honey
I had run the hill past the Montessori school hundreds of times But now I couldn’t, breathless. Then, blood in my eye, in my nose. An exquisite April day Under a flowering tree in the park I told my husband they saw blasts in my blood. Leukemia. A turn in the course of our lives. …
Anatomy and peace
Mixed Media
To Crochet
I can’t pretend to understand What it is to make something Out of nothing but chaos and string To use nothing but my hand And perhaps a tool or two To make a hat that would fit a king And on brisk slicing sidewalks That turn quickly to slide-walks I wonder how long it would …
