Skin

Images used by the artist include Portrait No. 40, Portrait No. 48, and Portrait No. 47 by Lam Qua. Images used courtesy of the Peter Parker Collection of the Whitney Medical Library at Yale University Library.       

Stillness, Come Sit With Me

I wish in these hours of tendon, bone, salt the erratic jump of machine’s tracing with heart’s beat Lub dub lub dub lub dub I wish you could pour down the sulci of my constant inside talk like summer rain in the seconds before it all stops— Leave me with the slow drip of one …

Shared History

I say, “What seems to be the problem?” You say, “I don’t know. You called me in.” I say, “Are you getting enough exercise?” You say, “I’m too tired after a day on my feet. My muscles ache from the up-down-up-down-up-down.” I say, “Are you taking your fluoxetine as recommended?” You say, “The little half-moons? …

Entangled

What’s in Your Hands?

What was in your hands when you arrived at the Emergency Department? Your belongings that you wanted to make sure got to your hospital room 3 days later? Your chest as we discover fluid around your heart In the ICU? Your husband’s wrist as your heart speeds up past normal levels In pre-op? Your neck …

6AM/PM

What have we to show? Walking home Under the empty Orange light of sodium street lamps After even the stars have gone to bed And the sidewalk slush soaks scrub hems. Too tired to stuff speakers into our ears As to avoid being left alone With the siren-silence And our thoughts. Fresh footfalls indent the …

Bayanihan

There’s a Filipino word: bayanihan (buy-uh-nee-hun) which roughly translates to a spirit of helping your community without expecting anything in return. Bayanihan: also the word used to describe the tradition of neighbors coming together to move a family’s nipa hut from one place to another. In this way, life is carried on the shoulders of …

Salt Lake

The Elijahs who parted the waters with the rod are gone And we remain The chariot of fire and the whirlwind The woven mantle and the staff with which to split the sea Fall to us The coal fire and the dam dynamo whirling in the spray The white coat and the uranium control rod …

Til Death Did Us Part

There were no last breaths to take You couldn’t Just beats of your heart I promised you wouldn’t be alone I promised the kids You weren’t By your side I lay You were at peace No longer suffering No hunger for air Just you and I As the saying goes Love someone enough to set …

A Place for Grief

It is September 19, 2022. I am one month into my first year of medical school,

Heavy

Stage Four

She is stage four. Knowing this will take her life, Someday. Her daughter knows too, but no one else can see the tiny cluster of cells on her liver; in her brain. When they hear she has cancer they think it must be early because she still has her hair. They don’t realize it’s a …

Crabby

Malar

after wards

Rooms where there is living and dying Giving and drying Eyes, diagnoses either millstones or balloons On frail necks. In these touchstone rooms we make our house, And forsake our spouse At home, that home. Our promises are full of “soons”, Our ears, “Next?” In their beds our guests slumber evades Cacoph’ny in spades Sings …

What is Love?

Is it a gentle kiss? Is it a whispered promise? Is it a summer day’s bliss? Is it relinquishing your freedom to be with them? I saw it there, in a memory care unit He was the only person she knew He still understood time, place, and her heart But couldn’t bear to part from …