Tag: surgery

How We Rebuild by Christopher Barry

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How We Rebuild

After his hip surgery
I asked my friend about meditation
because we have the same history
when it comes to pharmaceuticals
and I wondered how honest
he was with the doctor about his past
and how was he managing
with his wife keeping track of the pills
because as we inhabit these bodies
not designed to last as long as they do
how does sitting and noticing our breathing
help when bone rubs on bone where cartilage
used to be and tendon and ligament
fail to stretch around all that atrophy.

And my friend, who rebuilt one day at a time his life
only to wake one day with a titanium hip
that will outlast his body
and a prescription that reads like a note
from an old love that his wife
holds in her purse, understands
I am not asking a theoretical question
of suffering. Some days I sit
and follow my breath while my thoughts
snake through the wreckage of my past.
Some days no amount of detachment
and gently coming back to my breathing
is enough. I can manage the slow move
towards the surgeon’s knife
but what is strong enough to handle
the recovery that follows?

*

Christopher Barry is a teacher living in New Hampshire. His most recent work has appeared or will appear in “Feral,” “Scavengers,” “Poet’s Row,” and “Sport Literate,” and “Sardine Can Collective,” among other publications. Follow him on Instagram @mrbarrywrites

Filling out Routine Paperwork at My Own Doctor’s Appointment after the Baby’s Bypass by Kathryn Petruccelli

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Filling out Routine Paperwork at My Own Doctor’s Appointment after the Baby’s Bypass

Pen tip paused, poised above page.
The form asks about surgeries, hospitalizations.
He is four months old. Our separation
incomplete. It was me, him; it was him, us;
it’s unclear who was opened up.
I choke a little, as if someone stoked an already
fanned flame, then remember—my life
had not burnt to char, spark instead
smothered, orange cooled to black,
crackle and ash. Dry brush of recent events
smolder, the baby, at home in his basinet,
small fish in a fresh spring, probably
eating his fist and gurgling. The nurse presses
buttons on a scale, smoke rises, thin trail over
my head, ballpoint in my hand a poker.

*

Kathryn Petruccelli is a Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions-nominated writer who holds an obsession with the ocean and an MA in teaching English language learners. You can find her work in places like West Trestle Review, Tinderbox, SWIMM, RHINO, Fictive Dream, and SweetLit. She teaches pay-what-you-can workshops, writes the Substack newsletter, Ask the Poet., and hosts the Melody or Witchcraft podcast that discusses the sources of literary inspiration. More at poetroar.com.

Three Poems by Valerie Braylovskiy

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Shaving My Legs Before Surgery
to feel more like a woman
on a Cosmopolitan cover magazine
selling chocolate diet pills and soft
men. My sister’s vanilla cashmere cream says
I will glow better, scents pain
with supermarket cupcakes.
One day after, I am prescribed antiseptic skin
soap, used sparingly to sterilize
the body for cutting. I refuse to go under
as patient, chatting to my anesthesiologist
like two girls getting ready for prom.
My dreams last one blue
hued morning, noon sun sends
me back as a mannequin,
adorned and heavy.
*
Notes on RX
          Living is strange
          — C.D. Wright
Monday you shake three bottles, peer at cylinders with novelty.
One is rust, the other metallic blue. The biggest tastes
synthetic, screams illness.
Tuesday you think about your relationship
with Big Pharma.
You are due for a refill, chat with the robot
medical assistant.
Jolene, the nurse your age, says your insurance rejected
your needs.
Switches you to a generic brand, promises
it’s all the same.
Wednesday is pharmacy trip after daylight.
Small talk with striped purple hair looks-like-Nancy, bitching
about the economy.
She calls antidepressants placebo, tells you to enjoy
them while they work.
At the front of the line, you recite your identity.
Opt out of automatic refills, your bloodstream
revolting.
*
American Sonnet Of My Body’s Cross-Sectional Images On A Computed Tomography Scan
You’re going to feel like you have to pee
but don’t worry, the nurse says.
It tastes like the color blue, warmly
relentless. My throat makes a run
for it. My bad parts bathe in snow
colored mud. I’ve become a doctor
for killing what’s small. Faux plant
on my windowsill. Sickened fruit fly.
My own leaves—
blue enters me, bursting ice caps
melting cherry red. Paints me
aged magenta, leaves me unseen—
I swallow a kind of ending,
shimmery metal.
*
Valerie Braylovskiy is a poet from the Bay Area and the author of Half-Life, a chapbook by Alien Buddha Press. As a Canterbury Scholar at Santa Clara University, she is developing a poetry manuscript exploring chronic illness and womanhood.