Love Heals
The Hearth
Imposters
Treatment odyssey
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
Shinzou Kintsugi-The Repair of the Heart
Lying
face down in bed sheets and chucks changed as he can’t hold enough air to eat or walk or sleep but just stare into space. his daughters framed by iPad weeping his bed frame rails up to keep him from falling his future framed by breaths left as he says his goodbyes while he can …
Dusting
The bed alarm sounded at 2 AM And there she stood upon the stool Dusting the place above Where the pillows are kept Where the motes have gathered Unremembered Except by the old woman Whose family is frightened By what she cannot remember We clamor in whispers As not to wake the others But she …
Prepared
30 Seconds
Bringing the Genome into Focus
First Portrait
This watercolor and charcoal drawing is an ultrasound depiction at 18 weeks
Dependent
Room with the Crosses
Scuttle into the dimly lit room. Quiet save for the whisper of her shallow breaths. Eyes catch glistenings scattered across the hospital room walls. A dozen lines of oil smeared into stout crosses shimmering in the faint light. No one has come to visit, remnant from the previous tenant. Were they left in final farewell? …
