Cockroach Rodeo
Flashbacks of a 4th Grade insect lesson
as I peered through my otoscope:
head, thorax, abdomen.
A few drops of alcohol to the patient’s ear.
The critter ran out, down the side of her face,
and onto the floor.
Her mom and sisters shrieked.
I squashed it with my heel.
Not my first cockroach rodeo.
The Hairy Truth
“Cancer treatment makes me
want to pull my hair out!”
I said as I yanked out giant clumps.
I laughed. My visitor gasped.
What I didn’t tell him:
That morning, as I showered, my five-year-old
carefully laid a paper towel at the edge of the tub
so I could place my fallen hair upon it.
Shared Memories
It’s a simple house. The New England kind.
Blue shutters and a green door.
The yard is lit with bright trees. Snow has settled on the tips of grass.
My grandmothers worked here, my mother played here.
I only see it from the sidewalk,
but it’s touched with magic, as though their memories are mine.
The Final Cut
The Final Cut
Her last wish was donation, in the form of teaching.
Would he be so selfless, at his end?
They cut her skin,
examined her muscles,
followed the delicate threads of her nerves,
so that one day they might understand, investigate, diagnosis.
He turned away from her filed nails and curled hair,
to honor her sacrifice.
American Dream
American Dream
How is one supposed to feel,
when so much is
upside
down?
My wrong is your right.
Your black is my white.
How did my hopes become your fears,
and your laughter my tears?
Yet, I trust that we all want
solace
equality
empathy
democracy.
I still believe, eternally, in the promise of our America.
Winter
Winter
“I’m lucky without winter,” some say.
But I cannot imagine a January morning with no shiver of cold,
no rivers of ice dangling from gutters.
I wonder what a passing year would be like
without a biting wind against my cheeks
without Sunday mornings wrapped in blankets,
without the twinkle of snowflakes falling outside windows.
Peanut M&Ms
I successfully extracted the peanut M&M from his 4-year-old nose.
It was green.
“Thank you!” Mom said. The patient giggled.
I stood to leave.
Dad stared at his hands. “I didn’t believe it would fit,” he said. “So I tried, too.”
The second extraction of the night? A green peanut M&M.
Like son, like father.
2020
2020
A year like no other.
It is easy to see it as dark.
Earthquakes and windstorms.
A sea of masks.
“I can’t breathe.”
But there’s another side.
Resilience.
Innovation.
Self-examination.
What is it that we will recall, as it fades?
What will we remember in our tomorrows,
when we hold it up against the light?
Life Expectancy
The lump.
It turned me from physician to patient.
Though at the end of the day, there’s no real separating.
19 months: port access, cold tables, bloody sores, disappearing eyelashes, sepsis.
A new life expectancy.
And also,
A new life expectancy.
Appreciation, unbridled kindness, deeper love, a different view of sunsets.
Patient, physician. Back again.
Photograph
Photograph
A picture cannot capture
the warm sandstone under my fingertips.
the slight smell of mint and sage.
the sound of my muted footsteps upon the earth.
the walls of the canyon twisting toward the desert sky.
the big horn sheep gracefully walking on a cliff’s edge.
the beat of my heart, living inside that moment.
Week-End
Air cool, coffee cold, walking up hill.
Thinking of sick babies and tearful parents
I pick apart my decisions, one by one.
Saturday afternoon awaits: carpools, laundry, school projects.
In-between: a mountainside covered with yellow grass that flows like ocean water.
I should stop, breathe, watch.
Instead, I hurry from one task, to the next.
The Virus
Molecules bind to receptors and trigger cascades.
Infiltrated organs fail ―
hearts with no push, kidneys with no filter, lungs unable to exchange
A person gasping for air, dying alone.
A community isolated, angry, divisive.
A society without rudder, broken in two.
A world that had the chance to unite, but couldn’t.
A small, enormous enemy.
