Body of Work
A few poems that reunite medicine with the body
This past week I completed
’s Visceral Self course. She’s a freakin’ delight and a compassionate and generous teacher, so I highly recommend you check it out. One of the most fun aspects of the course was looking at my bodily experience in situations that I typically ignore or override my body.She asked at one point about a non-writing activity that is a similar process to writing. In my life, I think that would be repairing a complex laceration. You get the lay of the land, see how all the pieces fit together. Then, you find the key corners that line up to hold to form in right alignment. Sometimes the corners you think go together don't really so you cut the stitch and line it up again. Once those few key stitches are lined up you fill in the edges and star shapes until everything is closed.
That discussion (which included
’s brilliant body of work pun, which became my title today) inspired me to think of the physical experience of various medical procedures and practices from the perspective of the sensations and the poetry of the process. I have a few ideas for short silly ones like having someone blow into a syringe to reset a too fast heart, to more magical like shocking a heart, or the forceful like putting a joint in place. I started by writing a poem about putting in a chest tube. Chest tubes are used to decompress a collapsed lung or drain blood or fluid from around the lung.The first poem I want to share is my final project, so to speak, where we took our bits from what we created throughout and put them together in a new way. It’s interesting how difficult it can be to let go of your first idea and open to other possibilities.
On Ventilators and Learning to Breath Again
Suffocating and drowning Breathing in the warm, moist, stifling air Behind a surgical mask Sweaty brow Sore, scratchy, tight throat Jaw clenched Trapped tears Until my soft edges shattered like glass I held a thick rock in my hands Cool, rough, shaped like a human heart With the lightest pressure it broke in two God wanted something much deeper and darker From me And for me My skin, newly awake reveled as she felt the sun’s warm bounding pulse on her skin But it must be peeled away along with everything else Hanging over the sharp, tangled arms of gorse and hawthorne Eyes in the sky Clouds descending between mountains On Raven’s wing Toes in the grass Crushed under my soles Simultaneously itchy and pleasant Against my arches Hips in the water Cold, wet ropes of hair drip water Between my breasts Heart in hands Trying to keep a hold of that slippery, flip-flopper Without squeezing too hard The rain galloped forth As I, a novice horsewoman Tried to slide a foot into her stirrups And hold onto her reins It was then I knew my daughters would have a flood for a mother Laughter, a tinkle or a roar An embrace that could lift you off your feet Leaving a sturdy branch for dove or raven
As I said above, the following is a poem about putting in a chest tube. It is not intentionally gross, but it talks about the sensation of the experience from my experience putting it in, so it is literally visceral. I only think one part of it is potentially cringe-worthy, but then again I am a terrible judge of what is cringe-worthy, so proceed with caution if you have a sensitive soul or a sensitive stomach.
Letting In and Letting Go
My gloves squeeze my hands And my hands feel like They are pushing outward on the glove The cleaning solution cracks Under the pressure Between fingers and palm Translucent orange Oozing into the sponge tip Then smeared across her chest I find her nipple and follow That line until it crosses The line down from the middle of her armpit My finger runs over The firmness of rib Then the softness between Firm Soft Until I find The spot The edge between hard and soft Just above the rib I grab a piece of gauze Hold it over the tip of the glass container As I break it open With my left hand I hold the syringe with thumb, index, and middle finger Pulling back with my thumb Watching clear liquid fill the tube Find the edge between hard and soft again I pull soft, stretchy skin taut Between thumb and forefinger Then advance the needle slowly until I hit hard and hop it over into soft Pushing down on the syringe With my right thumb all the while I lift a piece of frosted plastic A weird mix between flexible and inflexible To uncover the blade One more time, I find the edge between hard and soft At the right angle of nipple and center of armpit Drag gently for an inch or inch and a half As warm, dark, red fluid oozes downward From this point on, the kindest thing to do Is move hard and fast I poke my finger into the line I just cut Her skin squeezes around my second knuckle Soft, yellow orbs of fat surrounding the rest of my finger Until my finger finds that edge between hard and soft from within My hand feels around the tray for cold steel A device that looks like a large scissors with blunt ends Index finger at the point My hand wrapped around the X Second hand overlying Nothing in the finger holes Both hands pushing Leaning with my chest Maybe my hips, until... POP! Maybe whoosh, maybe gush, maybe nothing much I pull the rings of the scissor shape apart Opening the X Pull back I feel an unnatural disconcerting tear And slip my left finger in the hole just made Feeling the warm, slimy, squish of lung Beneath my finger In Chinese medicine, the lung is responsible For letting in and letting go For grief The lung is the minister To the body's emperor, the heart It protects and advises I grab another clamp with a large tube inside And another clamp at the far end for the initiated I hold the clamp with one hand Sliding it into the hole held open by the other I release the clamp Sliding the tube deeper from there I grab the needle shaped like a half moon Attached to a string of black silk And clamp it in the needle driver I slide thumb and ring finger through My wrist makes a half moon shape Followed by another in the opposite direction Silk thread wrapped around the tip of the needle driver then around the base of the tube many, many times Then tied again The nurse hands me the tubing of the kit I slide it on Release the second clamp Pass the dressing to the nurse Step backward Grab the scalpel Grab the needle Drop them in the small red box across the room Peel off the squeezing glove Pull off the bouffant cap Tear off the back of my gown "Everything went well. We'll see how it looks on the x-ray." I back out of the room My singular focus broken A line of people need something from me So I've never wondered Does that lung protect her heart differently after meeting my touch?
In medicine, we are taught anatomic landmarks, places on the body that tell us where to go (usually to safely perform a procedure). I wanted to play with how we orient ourselves a little bit. Someday, I might try another poem with anatomic and geographic landmarks playing together.
Landmark
There is a pink isoceles triangle Behind your bottom teeth Inside that triangle is a nerve That will numb Most of your bottom teeth Two finger breadths below your Adam's apple Is a small gap Possibly the most important gap in your body As gap between two cartilages Where a tube can be made to fit If your life depends upon it Inside your shoulder Toward your chest There is a small valley The natural spot to find The subclavian vein And a similar valley just below And outside your knee When it is bent A convenient location to find joint fluid When my daughters were small I used to find the right spot to put a chest tube Or cup her pelvis in my hands and place my thumb On the spine To find the right space between bones To perform a spinal tap Just to make sure it was still there Just to make sure she was still there Just to make sure I was still there
I have a lot less experience as a poet than as a doctor, so it has been fun to pull something that feels a little more solid into my writing. I would love to hear your perspective on the actual words on the page or the meaning you make from them based on your experience.
Ooooohhh I love the weaving of medical and other LIFE! I am sensitive, squeamish, basically blood phobic and was still able to read!
This, to me, is why Substack is a gem. Where else would one find such a quirky and gifted poetic form to savour--and where else would the poet herself be likely to share it?