poetry

I work for a company called Hektoen, an online medical humanities journal. We have recently contacted many people with a call for new and better submissions. As a consequence of this, we have received a flux of poetry in all of our inboxes. So on this Friday afternoon I have spent my time reading a multitude of poems written mostly by doctors; an outlet I think they all need. I have loved so many of them that I can't just keep them to myself. So here are 3 of my favorites:

Balloons, by John Vanek

My son's best friend, six years
in remission
leaves the pre-prom party, comes to me,
puts a hand on my shoulder,
sits, says I look sad.

I tell him I'm fine,
cloak my deceit
in a throaty laugh,
ask why he's not
inside flirting.

Joes just shrugs, as if he has
a lifetime of time, says
he's spreading his wings, soaring
to Florida this fall for college.
His smile warms the cold Ohio spring,

refills my deflating middle age
with the lightness of possibility.
Then he's gone--
back to the party, worrying about
finals, graduation, prom night.

Three years later, his friends
gather in an early April drizzle, each
clinging to the string of a helium balloon.
Mine is red, my son's is green,
Joel's Mom's is blue.

When the eulogy ends, we let them go,
bleeding all color from Ohio
into a polka dot sky.
I guess I'll always see
those damn balloons

and his smile in my mind until
the sky dons a polka dot rainbow
for me.
I hug my son, afraid to let go,
afraid he'll float away.



Conception, by Ron Domen ( I shortened this one a little because it's very long )

It is important to know the stories
that surround our conception.
But leave out the part about the hormone
surge that expands the cumulus cells
surround the zona pellucida
and prepares the egg for fertilization.
I would rather know if there was passionate
love-making in the back seat of a Ford
at a drive-in movie the rolled up windows
made opaque from your steamy breaths.

And don't go into detail how sperm
must fight their way through fibrous
macromolecules in cervical mucus
to get to fallopian tube fimbria
where the egg awaits fertilization.
Tell me about the gibbous moon
that rose above the swell of waves
on your honeymoon beach
and like sea turtles hatching
out of the sand and making their way
back to salt water I too
started my journey there on the sand.



Another Found Poem, by John A. Vanek

Christmas lights of red and green
twinkle on the monitor,
flash pulse and pressure, proclaim
the baby in this crib will live
for now.

My gloved hand hovers above the only vein
on his hairless scalp, 'til the butterfly
needle finds courage to land,
and I tape the tube to sallow skin
that wants to tear away.

Blue fingers fist with the whoosh
of each breath, as bellows fan
this fading ember--a warm blanket
and a mother's sleepless song,
gifts for the newborn child.

She huddles with her husband as if cold,
his blue blazer now her shawl, limbs and lives
entwined, nestled forehead to forehead,
exchanging a dialysis
of toxic hope.

I want nothing more
than the sleep of a silent night
filled with dreams of places
other than here, heedless
of her cradlesong.

In this strawless manger of sorrow,
below a fluorescent star, I wonder
how to tell this couple
the baby they never could bear
will be gone by New Year's.

I fiddle with knobs, gauge
how much they understand,
snatch glances meant for each other,
stare at my blood-spattered shoes, then
tell them--

and all is lost
but these words
and the haunting hum
of a mother's
never-ending lullaby.