MORE...

When I look at his hair
        waves of shiny black charcoal glisten softly at me.
When he turns, I see a break in its continuity
        a barren spot where the thick carpet shies away.
His humanness slaps me in the face.

Are the bodies of Gods composed of anything other than ambrosia?
Are they not sweet respite quenching the thirsty eyes of my desire?

Is there no wise old woman that can read the secret meaning carried
                in this tender pale spot?

There aren't too many of us left...

from battling fields,

that made it back home.

There aren't too many of us,

that stayed whole...

tobacco and alcohol,

have taken their toll.

I'm a survivor yes, but for how long?

I have smoked my life away

many puffs, many hits, many limbs lost,

Not to a grenade, not to a bomb,

But to a cigarette back home.

I look at my comrades

some still have two legs,

to walk to the operating room

to battle Lung C.A.

And we are still in a War

with cloudy vision from the smoke,

Can't see the Foe...

that kills us heroes back home.

She's sitting on a bench in the park.
Right near the flowers and the pond.
The ducks are swimming and quacking,
While some birds sing, others are flying.
Maybe they're nesting.

She's wearing a blue jumper and a pink sweater.
Pink and blue ribbon tie up her hair.
Blue socks and pink sneakers.
She smiles as she looks at the balloons being sold,
Pink and blue, also.

Then something happens!

What is she thinking of, I wonder.
Her eyes are fixed on that old stroller
That's pushed by that young, good looking mother.
In which a baby lies all covered.
But, can she see it?

She's gone somewhere, gone with her worries.
To a place so far no one can find her.
And when she's back she'll never notice.
The stroller's gone. Then she will mutter,
"Maybe I'll need one."

She leaves again and thinks of options.
End it all soon and lie about it.
To keep it silent, 'til it's too obvious,
Or just face up and talk about it.
And pay the consequences.

The curtains part and the spotlight shines
Without rehearsal he is expected to perform
He sits like an empty puppet
Till slowly he comes to life
Learning and exploring he dances on stage
To the clapping of the hidden audience

But too soon the clapping stops
And he wonders why
He is told to hurry off stage
For he anxiously awaits for news
On the nature of his condition
Restrictions are placed but he may return

At first cautiously but soon forgetfully
He tries to dance as before
But time has passed and he has aged

Again he is told to hurry off stage
For he is old and cannot get better
So he warily awaits for news
On the nature of his condition
Restrictions are placed and he may never return

At first cautiously but soon forgetfully
He takes his place in the darkness
Among the clapping of the hidden audience.

Healing
"Tell me about what hurts you today."
"No time to hurt. I have to get in 10 hours of studying today."
Strength
I learn to endure the sight of failing life.
I learn to endure sacrificing my personal life.
Choices
I choose digitoxin over digoxin in patients with renal failure.
I choose to love someone "untouchable" with hopes of feeling his human
touch.
Relationships
Instant support network or
Environmentally forced interaction?
Knowledge
Which pathology facts do I memorize?
Who am I?

Student Doctor.

    The third year was over and the rest of medical school would be smooth sailing. Pediatrics was where I was going to end up but I wanted to give surgery one more try.
    Here I was a very cocky, overconfident all-knowing M4 finally ready to leave the U of I system after eight years. All I needed was 42 more weeks of clerkships and I was done. No more bureaucracy.
    When I signed up for trauma, I knew that it would be grueling. My friends had taken it before me and told me it was brain numbing, but was an unbelievable experience I could not pass up. Also, I knew my senior in surgery was going to be there in the summer and we had become very close.
    The first few calls were pretty uneventful: two uncomplicated GSWs to the flank, numerous MVAs, and some blunt head trauma. I could do whatever I wanted in these situations and I took full advantage: chest tubes, central lines, deep peritoneal lavages. The only action in the OR I had was cutting sutures and "water skiing." I wanted more OR time and I would get that in my next case and much more.
    It was a very quiet night. No traumas today. I had just finished my last rounds. It was 3 a.m. and I was ready for bed. I was getting my last sports fix from the TV when Sonja, my senior, came into the call room and started rambling about her man troubles to me until she got tired and faded into sleep.
    My head had just hit the pillow when I heard the overhead page "Trauma Team To The Emergency Room, Trauma Team To The Emergency Room." It never failed, whenever I sat down to eat or go to bed for the night a trauma would come. We both bolted upright and looked at each other and went back to bed. It wasn't official until the beeper went off. Thirty seconds later ............ I found myself in the elevator with Sonja descending into a new beginning.
    Trauma is fun. True, not to the patient, but the atmosphere is unbeatable even though I didn't have any real responsibility. The adrenaline I felt when I walked into the front room was like winning a championship, climbing a mountain, and sex rolled into one.
    I walked through the ER, smiled at Tracy, one of the nurses, and she gave my hand a squeeze. "What's up Joanie?" (she was the head nurse). "Gun shot to the belly in a street fight. Glasgow of 13 and he'll be here in 5."
    I put on my worthless protective gown, gloved up, and walked into the trauma room. "Good morning," I facetiously blurted out to the eight people standing and waiting for our man. In the room were the attending surgeon, attending ER doc, three nurses, Sonja, me, and two M3s. Being a third year sucked in this situation. Their role: scissors off the patient's clothes, stick their finger in the patient's ass, and if you're lucky put the foley in place. My role is to avoid getting in the way and to do any procedures I can get my hands on.
    Our man arrived in five minutes. He was a man mountain. About 6'7" and 300+ and to make matters worse he was thrashing around.
    It is a spectacular sight to see a trauma team at work. Nurses on each arm trying to find a vein. One in the corner trying to catch everything the doctors are saying and writing it down. The M3s "joyfully" cutting off the patient's clothes and trying to hold down the patient before the drugs take effect. I can still vividly recall holding onto a patient's legs, losing my grip, and catching the size 12 right in the face. What memories of a U of I grad. The physicians working from head to toe, remembering their ABCs and screaming out commands.
    The man's face was bloodied and bruised from the fight. On survey of his whole body, we found a tiny little entrance wound about the size of a life saver and no exit wound. All I could think about was: could I ever get so mad at my brother to pull out a gun and fire? I was at the patient's head when I had my little absence seizure. I awoke to the piercing voice of my attending in my face asking if she had to intubate the patient. I had missed the continued workup of the patient and stood there with the blade in my hand and the endotracheal tube on his chest. I placed the tube in praying to God I didn't intubate the esophagus and we rushed the patient to the OR.
    The problem was that as we were whisking the patient away another trauma was called and the senior resident had to stay to work on that case. The attending said it was a pretty easy case and she would be okay by herself. That means I would be first assisting on the exploratory laparotomy!!! My mind was racing and I was extremely "pumped" but I could feel my hands getting very clammy and my stomach doing little flips. Again, I knew I was not going to be the responsible party in the surgery but this was the most responsibility I had had in my first three years.
    The patient's blood pressure was stable after he had received about two units of blood and lord knows how much IV fluids. He was wheeled into the room by the anesthesiologist as we scrubbed. I smiled at the attending as I scrubbed with the M3. He was an intense individual and very jumpy. It was his first OR case and he was way too excited. Surgery was his goal in life and he didn't want to look too clueless in front of his attending. He was mumbling about the eight layers of the abdominal wall while he watched me scrub. Was this me as a third year? I don't remember feeling that excited about my first operating room experience. I found it pretty boring after the first five minutes and knew that I couldn't see myself in general surgery next year. However, maybe if I could make it through the five years of general surgery training and be able to do trauma surgery, things would be different. I loved it as much as I loved pediatrics. I didn't know that in about thirty minutes my career plans would change.
    There is a very powerful feeling that all surgeons must feel while they are being dressed by the scrub nurse, or it could be just me. But I felt omnipotent as I slid my last glove on and started to enshroud "my" patient with dark blue sheets.
    Then came the magical words. "Okay Dr. Chad go ahead. I'll stop you when you start to examine the bowel for injury. Remember the bullet is sitting under the liver but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Our car went off that bridge.
    I looked up to see if she was serious, and she was. I started to shake as I had the scalpel in my hand. I always try to imagine the perfect end result of any task I begin and that usually calms me down. I saw my man's face looking at me while he was shaking my hand for saving his life.
    We got into the abdominal cavity without a hitch and I started to gain more confidence as I started to run the bowel to check for damage. She took over for me and I could see from her eyes that she was smiling under her mask.
    A small nick in the small bowel was easily repaired and now we moved to the liver. One maneuver of the liver and the anesthesiologist said the BP was dropping fast. As soon as those words crossed the room, I saw a gush of blood and I instinctively reached to plug it. Both my hands were in his belly and I was literally elbow deep in his blood. My attending screamed for someone to call the head surgeon of the trauma unit for assistance. We cross clamped anything and everything but time was slipping away.
    I could feel myself slipping away. It was like a nightmare. Time was passing so slowly. Nothing seemed real to me. I had this blank stare on my face and I looked up to see the same look on the M3's face as I saw him drop to his knees and vomit. The attending probably called us worthless about 200 times before the second attending came in to "save the day."
    I have never felt as helpless as I did for those thirty minutes. They finally found the bullet. It had taken a gigantic hole of the inferior vena cava and part of the aorta, but the holes were miraculously clotted off until we destroyed those clots. He was dead in thirty minutes.
    The adrenaline was gone, my body was soaked with sweat and I wanted to cry but didn't dare while anyone was watching. I had never actually seen a patient die. Sure, I had patients who died but they had died in the night when I wasn't there. I knew that in my care some of my patients would eventually die and I would be in the same predicament again. I felt this experience would make me a better physician but I knew that trauma surgery not for me. Most trauma units save 95% of the people they encounter; however, deaths like the one I had just witnessed were overwhelming and it felt like a part of me had died with him. I knew that trauma was the only surgery field I truly enjoyed but in the long run that lifestyle would eventually turn me into a burned-out bitter man.
    Chad the pediatrician finally got to cry as he sewed up the patient alone and waited for transportation to take him to the morgue.

Spring
The flowers are blooming, the red-chested robins are back
Love is in the air
Signs of life are everywhere for the eye to behold
Caught in the moment
I did not anticipate the HIV that unprotected sex would give to me

Summer
Things are fine, a small summer cold
It's nothing to fear, I've had them before
Nothing to keep me from the barbecues and pool parties
But as the summer heat arises and wilts the precious flowers
My temperature follows suit and takes its toll on me
As life hides from the heat in dark shade and air conditioned buildings
So I cool my fear and depression in the light of hope

Fall
The trees sway in the wind and the leaves begin their descent to the ground
They form a sunset colored canopy over the flower bed
As the multicolored leaves continue to fall, so does my weight and CD4 count
The rainbow spectrum of pills on the dresser grow with each new opportunistic infection
There are no spectacular fall colors for me to gaze at
Just the gradual wasting of my mind and body

Winter
The leaves have fallen and the freeze has come spreading its icy death over all
No more flowers, no more picnics in the park
No more walks along the lake, no more colors
The world sleeps and waits for spring
The bag full of pill bottles is empty, the fight has come to an end
No more Zidovudine or didanosine, no more pentamidine treatments
No more Ganciclovir, No more
I sit and wait for the Spring that will never come.

His love was unconditional, and yet
Not once did we begin to recognize
How selfless he was, and I regret
How spoiled we were. But then I realize
We never really let him down, because
His heart was not the kind that could resent
The times he would have shared with us, but was
Denied, because our time was elsewhere spent.

Love's never unconditional: it will
At times appear as strong as God above,
But even love most powerful is still
As fragile as the heart that holds the love.
How tragic, that this didn't seem to dawn
On us until the doctor said, "He's gone."

The Beginning

Alarm. I am
Awake.
To the halls
    to the halls.

Nausea.
    Mine-patient's-mine-patient's
Shared.

Current Recent Remote
    descriptions
of health.

Integrate.
    Right.

Read. Read. Read. Read.

I am a black hole.

The Middle

I am able.
Repeat
        I am able.
40 times.

Now I walk the halls
Without panic.
Mostly.

Good morning?
Oh.
And now?
Uhuh.
When?
I see
        (maybe)

Check, Recheck.
Think.
Round
Report.

Yes. I see. Yes.
Read. Read. Read. Read.

The End

Another.
Another.
Think. Thinking. Thought.

Halls walked,
    Rounds made,
        Readings read
            Later.

I can not
        speak
        on command
Anymore.
No.

Let me
Go.

faded black bag
still gleaming golden inscription
James Vernon Kopp, M.D.
stethoscope
with which I hear
the slow, sad beats of my heart
bone marrow needles
bare brown coffin
healing hands
folded, cold and still
remember that you are dust

Expecting a transformation
from lay person to doctor

Not during clerkships as I expected
When I was prepared
Rather with a suspicious mammogram
My mother's
I tell her not to worry-
simple procedure- excisional biopsy
with needle localization
But the surgeon's voice after the operation
That very familiar tone
"I got clean margins" was all he said
Later he tells my mother- we'll know Wednesday
And he throws a warning glance my way

Wednesday- takes forever to arrive-
And the report isn't ready
And I mentally list the bad reasons why
My mother asks
because I know these things
"should I worry"
No I tell her
Still she persists-
"Are you worried"
I pause and carefully lie.

The final report "necrotic, ulcerated, dysplastic lesion"
Not malignant- the surgeon is relieved
He tells my mother I'll be relieved too-
And she confronts me
And I wonder if she'll trust me again.

"You'll get the fat man
Can't see his penis 'cause of the blubber"

Crude I thought
What's he got, I thought

28 yo wm, 521 lbs 5'8"
Buffalo hump, moon facies

Patient improving
Loss of weight
Ambulation...

Patient falls

5000 units Sub Q; q 12 hours
Pain; talks of dreams

His dead parents are appearing
"They're coming to get me"

Right leg swells, tender

Student: "Thrombophlebitis"
Attending: "Possibly, already being treated"

Should we up the Heparin? Notice his weight.
Don't know of any studies to increase the heparin

1/2 hour - Code
"I'm goin' to die"

1 hour - "Nothing"

What might be its destiny?
Eggs fertilized and waiting
Implantation or frozen for years to come
To be born this year or in 2001.
All are viable yet few are chosen.
Many successfully implant
One or two are acceptable but not
triplets or quads.
Not to worry.
Selective termination it's called.

Nature would have her not to conceive
But money superseded
Clomiphene induced triplets arrive
Preterm
Medically prevented for as long as possible
But nature superseded
Three one-pound babes struggle in intensive care
Entangled by clear tubing
The boy babe succumbs
His sisters with intracranial hemorrhages are
Weaned from ventilators months later
Hundreds of thousands of dollars later
Take home baby rate is thirty percent
Life is no longer priceless

She suffered long and then went willingly into the night.
Suicide assisted.
Euthanasia.

We manipulate life and destroy it.
He that giveth life also taketh it away.
What would God say?

a dove soars through the jet black sky

white against black

black against white

the black and white checker

they zigzag

fitting harmoniously together

blending in smoky hues of

grey

or passionfruit red

it is a creation which some cannot picture

as it exists in a time without clocks

and rooms without walls

it is

because we fly on the wings on doves and eagles

drink the sweet nectar of plums and mangoes

and exhale the solitary breath

it is a delicious morsel of moments

sculpted to our form

it is purple raindrops glistening on a blade of grass

it is a cascading waterfall on two peaceful bathers

it is a melting of black and white and screaming magenta

dare!

    Why? Why? Why did this have to happen to me? For a few moments of pleasure and passion. The passion — the pleasure. Five minutes wasn't worth it. Not for a lifetime of pain, and what is a lifetime now: a few more months, a few more years? And will it have any substance, any quality? All it took was a condom: a stupid piece of latex. But all I took was a venture into unprotected sex. A teen — an adventurer. But no pioneer. Just one more person walking trails mapped out before. Those dark trails — trails of curiosity. If only I knew. If only I thought. If only I questioned. If only there were a cure. AIDS ain't no joke. It sounds like a message for help. But it leaves you in a state of despair.
    When I speak to teens. It's nice to pass on the message, and it's great to be hugged and to be listened to. I don't want anyone else to go through what I have gone through because I hit a brick wall, but I have to keep moving. Marilyn has to move. I have to get out the message. I have to be me. Marilyn of spunk. Marilyn of joy. Marilyn of courage.
    When I was in church, I found the courage to stand up and tell the tale. It was grabbing me real, real bad. The choir was singing. And I kept itching down to my soul almost. And though it was hard telling, it was even harder holding it in when people kept thinking bad things about me. It's hard to face the fact that I do have full-blown AIDS. But full-blown hopelessness? — full-blown helplessness? No! Not me. I have to keep pushing 'cause God keeps me going. Thank you, Lord. You know I'm available.
    When I wake up in the morning, and I look healthy and feel good. It's a triumph. I can wash up, put on my makeup, and look like anyone else. Sometimes, when I look into the mirror, I can't help but say: girl you sure look f-i-i-i-ne. And I smile, and I thank God, and I wonder for how long. How long will I fit in? How long will it be before I look like a wreck and people start asking: "Does she have AIDS?" I mean a lot of people already know. But I feel good being in control. I tell them I have it. I keep some freedom — some dignity. But if they see it, and they say, "she must have AIDS" they won't even want to shake my hand. They'll see a weak hand, a sick hand. No pioneer just another traveller down a crazy path. Just another one of those sex-crazed people who deserved what she got. And when that happens I won't be as accepted, as loved, as appreciated. So I work out a lot. I don't want to shrivel up. I don't want to be a prune, a raisin. I'd at least like them to be able to say: "Don't she look natural?"
    I've never been sick in my entire life until this AIDS set up shop with PCP. A pneumonia that says more than: you've been a bad girl Marilyn. It came to me like death. Like a thief in the night saying: "Marilyn, I'm no play thing. I'm the real thing." The news hit so suddenly. Just what is HIV? What is the "H", the "I", the "V"? And when they explained it. They looked like there was no hope in their eyes. No hope for AIDS. No hope for Marilyn. But I hope AIDS dies dead. Die dead! Die dead! Die dead! And it seems like everyone else wants Marilyn to live. And I thank God for that too.
    I've found myself having a lot of support — a lot from my family and from friends of past relationships. And the best of all is God. When no one else is around, I talk to Him, and he answers. No one else can give me as much comfort as I've gotten from talking with God. At times, I wonder about everybody. Why do they want to be involved? Why do they want to go out of their way for me? I guess I would do the same for them. Or would I? Would I say: "It's your problem. Handle it yourself!"? Would I push them away? But with AIDS, you need help. You need support. I need support. You have to tell somebody. I have to tell somebody. And you have to tell the truth. You have to tell the truth for the right kind of peace. You have to be fair to yourself, and you have to be fair to people with AIDS. Because the truth is that I don't have long to live. I don't know when I'll die. And I have to let people know that, if you shook my hand and I had lung cancer, you wouldn't get cancer. And if you shake my hand now, I have AIDS. Marilyn has Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. And you, and you, and you, won't get it. You don't need a condom for a hug, a glove for a handshake. You don't have to step away to love me. Because, for me, that's not love, that's fear and shame. I don't have time for shame and fear. I mean I'll deal with your shame and your fear. But I don't want to feel the fear or any shame. It's not easy for me. I'm scared. I feel as if I'm living on AIDS time — absolutely uncertain time. God, please keep helping me along the way. Please keep me strong. Please keep my family strong. Please keep my friends strong.
    I try to keep smiling. I try to keep up as much courage as I had before. But I have to keep facing the fact that things have changed. I like to run free. I like to be who I am and the best of what Marilyn is. But Marilyn is tainted. I'm tainted. I have to struggle to stay out of depression. I have to struggle to stay out of sickness. I have to keep focused on as much of life as I can. And only God and I know how hard it is.
    It would be so much easier to love God and be with God and have all my strength. Have all my joy. But I've found myself having to buy joy. I bargain for joy. I ask God to keep me healthy one more day. And I promise to give one more day to Him. I know it sounds like a game. But it's life when you have AIDS. Or is it really another part of death.
    I could keep thinking about the coulda, the woulda, the shoulda. What should have happened. But in the end I just thank God for life and keep on. Thank you, Lord, for one more day.

Her broken boy
needs to be rolled in bed
at least twice each night

His arms and legs born
useless
overcooked limbs of broccoli

A body vegetable

Still sharp of mind
quick thinking sense of humor
now college bound

Yet happy?

How could he
really
when every night she weeps
since that day of birthing
her infant distortion
her new human knot
immediately untied and ripped away
to some intensive unit
for weeks into years

She weeps
his loss of possibilities
his stolen freedom trapped in a chair

She weeps
her own loss
her own entrapment

A shameful mother seeing him ugly

Her son freak-show for
every single passerby
every single day of her life with him

Her own flesh and blood
loved so completely
despised by cruel circumstance

Recalling the night of sweat and passion
her shaking thighs
her shrill sighs lingering
with the feel of wet skin
and throbbing exchange

A blessed carnal act
conceiving
a damaged life

A cursed carnal act
summoning words of scripture
that mark her
the weaker vessel
the defective womb
the malfunctioning machine
the instrument of Satan
the goddamn Creator

Breathing pain over life
suffering over love
shame over flight

Rolling through the days
of rolling him
shifting through the nights
of shifting his weight

Her constant shadow twin
her joy and twisted chain forever
her son

A young boy awakened at night,
"Mom is dead."
The young boy cried.
Now a medical student,
He still cries.

Catapults of heavy eyelids

Stenches of overdone coffee

Lure of mid-day respite

Invisible omnipresence of management

Clic-clic of women's heels

Distant yet nosy and intrusive stares

Reminders of torturous times of age relic

Partially pompous football conversations

Gender polarizations magnified

Body sizes glorified or carefully hidden

Unification via stringent dress codes

Depersonalization over lunch digestion

Boredom seeping through the fluorescent tube lights

Looming grey and coffee-colored metallic file cabinets

Daydreams of hunks under my desk

Secret outbursts in lonely elevators

Two Brians, two Johns, two Jays, two Margarets, two Dianes

Periodic field trips to any of three different ladies rooms

Suspicious whispers about unorthodox co-workers

Battling the early morning hunger pangs (and losing)

Undercover letter-writing under oodles of graph paper

Unification via suppression of individuality

Depersonification via loss of individuality.

"Wake up and smell the roses";
Stay awake and drink coffee-it's going to be a long night
(and an even earlier morning).

The best years of our lives-

Here today, gone tomorrow.

What if tomorrow came before today?

Let's go for a walk and visit Thoreau's pond or Emerson's Nature.
        Let's study and maybe pass a class- you only need an MPL.
                (Only an MPL might kill someone.)

Stay collected-

Entropy is the natural state of the universe

And I'm experiencing it now.

"Just Say No."
To be passive is to be DEAD.
Walking away can solve just about nothing-
Stay awake and smell passion.
Passion for excellence, for truth,
But not to be average and NOT to be passive.

I too hate "Robin Hood"

Take from those who can,

Give to those who won't. Don't tell me how to live.

Vote Democratic- but don't ask "Who is John Galt?"

Promote life. Perform abortions.

Save them from the end,

Only to pronounce us dead (and them).

Go on: Seize the grave.

You lie drier daily
    fragmented
        shredded
            mutilated
Unrecognized.

A post mortem meaning of your life:
        You teach.
We observe
        and name
        and learn
Not enough.

We scalped
    probed
        sawed
We laughed at what only
    most intimate companions
        can know
Were you scandalized
    or simply amused?

You ate
    breathed
        loved
            exercised
                thought
                    worked
And died.

You gave us your body
    We received it
        Used it (up)
    As a matter of course
In sober moments we
    Thank you.

Did you know your gift's value?
Did you know our Plan?
Did you expect respect?
Did you care?

The Body, torn, bloodless, senseless
    - pickled flesh and bones
Though still
    Demands
Attention
    Awe
Questions
Contemplation
    Joy!

It was minute and just beginning
        and you aborted it.
It was young and impulsive
        and you neglected it.
It was old and feeble
        and you cast it aside
Its remembrance is now in your dreams.
Its presence is profoundly desired.
The joy it comprised denied.
The future it held unfulfilled.
The wisdom it contained lost forever.
Now...what will we do?

Serial

Killer

 

The last time we talked, I was quite angered and sad,

Strange, considering that you've given me things princes never have

But you're destroying a person I care about very much,

Someone whose heart I've tried my best to touch

Most would accuse you of murder, and I'd have to agree,

For as you commit this awful crime, you also hurt many others, one of them me

Using food as your weapon, you cause great pain and distress,

Victimizing yourself, in addition to those who love you the best

So before continuing along on your deadly rampage,

Stop and consider all the hardship your habits create

Give yourself up by putting an end to these grizzly crimes,

Learn to respect your life and take some of the fear out of mine

Although much like a serial killer, I'm still proud to call you Dad,

Surely the best father anyone but my brother has ever had

Hand in hand,
firmly pressed.
Winding corridors,
an endless maze.
Unfamiliar smells
of white on white.
Promises of ice cream
tomorrow.
Abandoned to a bed
so high.
Be brave. Be brave.

Face engulfed by a
mask of sleep.
Count backwards.
Don't mess up.

Throat on fire, with
hydrants spurting ice cream.
But the threat of swallowing
is too great.

Visitors bearing
stuffed pink bunny rabbits.
The triumphant trek home.

A piece of cake.

Vomiting each morning

the blessed growth inside

makes pizza taste like inside

an old filthy shoe

pushing muscles into new shapes and

moving internal organs so they fit

and reroute food and blood and

bodily fluids of every type

to make room for

this egg

now scrambled and baking raw batter

rising

ginger bread baby

little hands

little feet

through an ultrasound

first picture where absence reveals

a girl

painting everything pink

gaining two bowling balls of weight

just waiting

through an aching back and

swollen feet in July

bored and waiting

waiting waiting

Lamaze classes and praying

please

no defects

no c-section

as water breaks

eating ice chips

laboring pain

scream and breathe

scream and breathe

told to push

told to focus

the head

focus

then shoulders

focus

torso and legs

out

this life

this cry forth

weeping in relief

weeping in this moment

weeping in this act

no longer saved for God alone

the holy gift of incarnation.

In the music box of
my soul,
there is a song -
ALL WOUND UP,
but its cover is
locked shut.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Back in September, we had entertained the idea of publishing an all-star journal this year, including the best of Body Electric from past issues to celebrate ten years of existence. However, we soon had in our hands more prose and peotry than ever before. It was then evident that the strength of this year's selections would not only fulfill this literary magazine's purpose of providing a forum but would also reward its readers. Thanks go out to all writers, poets, and artists. We would also like to thank Suzanne Poirier for her management and guidance. Much appreciated as well is the secretarial work of Bernice Coleman and our judges, Robert Molokie and Hyman Muslin. Finally, congratulations to the prize-winners, whose pieces we are proud to present.

                    NIPA S. SHAH
                    College of Medicine '96

Advisor:   SUZANNE POIRIER, PhD
                    Department of Medical Education