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Poetry || SubmissionsPoems by Kelley White4:38 and now after twiddling my thumbs all after- noon I have four check- ups on the door premature twins wheezing and runny noses and a baby with a rash that didn’t go away an autistic teen- ager three hundred pounds at home your argument waits 6-6-2000 So tired: an eight-year-old raped by a twelve-year-old just hugged me and took home a book: Cam Jansen and The Chocolate Fudge Mystery. AMA --she feels a little bit better --she feels a little bit bad (washboard chest creaking open and closed) --she feels fine --she’s feeling a little bit fine believe we’ll go home Canker It wasn’t like dying that might have expected sleep, and it wasn’t living either if the living have senses; not dark, but a light that showed me all my ugliness, my bloated monotone practice, my clumsy fists, my child fool voice. It wasn’t like surgery, empty of careful stitching, but the kind of crush-wound a bite might make and infect with all the hectic germs of the tongue. So it was. The wound that grew and I loved to touch and feel it throb. That was what I had of life, the juicy pain, growing retouched refelt into its own birth. It was, after all not unlike the pupa of an insect left to change my flesh into its own carapace and blood. Cassandra I dreamed. I was with your father. In a great rathskellar. Brick yeasty with spilled beer. Small windows decorated with faded plastic flowers. Waitress in a dirndl and unlaced blouse. (He was testing it as a possible meeting place. For house staff and surgery students.) It’s not clear why I was included. Certain Hong Kong relatives who have not seen me in years are welcoming. They all comment on how you children are growing. Unfortunately, I lose control of myself. I seize a little hammer and pound your father on the top of the head. The waitress asks us to leave and never come back. Real life. Two days later. We are the only party. Seated upstairs at TGIF. You, the birthday boy. Occupy a table with twelve guests. I sit with your Aunt Jane. We have a quiet conversation with your father. Across the table. (Nothing untoward happens except. Some of the boys launch. Plastic paratroopers. And I have to watch my face for three hours in a mirror.) Kelley White, M.D. is a pediatrician in Philadelphia and a poet. Visit her website at http://geocities.com/kelleywhitemd or write to her at KelleyWhiteMD@Yahoo.com Today's Situation
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