The Heart Shows Signs
You’re out of sync, ditsy
in the daisies, where did you think
you were going? —bushwhacked and busy,
the I am, I am, I am of your life … that … steady
rhythm … start… bird startled stop …
against your rib … cage of feathers …
no, a panicked rat, jaw syncopating …
sudden gnaw moving to your chest
where you have been
keeping everything you love,
the sons who don’t call, the daughters
busy with their briefs, the heart
that shows signs of wearing down
and you try not to notice
what must be another attack of grief.
~
Catalogue for the Uncertainty Exhibit
“Many adverse events are not preventable and do not imply medical errors or substandard medical care. Moreover, determining whether a given medical error directly caused or contributed to a given death in the hospital is far from straightforward in most cases.” Physician and scientist, David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine
To cure you they burned you
one half of your face, your throat,
the inside of your mouth
filled with sores and pus
which you spit into Kleenex
and dropped around the house.
Your son didn’t come
and neither did your daughter.
You could not eat.
You could not swallow.
After 38 sessions of radiation
you grew so tired and weak,
you called your family doctor
and demanded to be put in the hospital
where the attendants had the usual trouble
inserting a nasogastric feeding tube
until one physician relented
and prescribed anesthesia.
When we came to see you,
you had been waiting half an hour
for a nurse to come
to take you to the toilet.
This is what is called
comprehensive cancer care.
Later you told me
the oncologist wasn’t sure
it was basal cell carcinoma
in the 7th cranial nerve.
~
Cosmic Distancing
Astronomers have repeatedly calculated the rate of the universe’s expansion—the Hubble constant—with two different techniques. These measurements have produced a seemingly intractable conflict. Scientific American, March 2020.
The stars too
are moving
apart
though cosmologists
have not determined
the quick—
it’s one speed
when they measure
back to the start,
another when they predict
the end
or if not the end,
the time all
moves so distant
the cosmos
appears empty.
You know
what I mean,
the Hubble constant
inconstant
and already deceiving—
you in such a far corner
of our little house
I no longer
hear you.
It’s not deafness.
It’s not cheating.
It’s the cosmic virus
spreading
our galaxies.
How soon?
How fast?
Please don’t leave
this room.
~
Lois Marie Harrod’s collection Woman (Blue Lyra) appeared in February 2020. Her Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks; her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016; Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. The last 14 years, she has taught at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and at The College of New Jersey. Links to her online work are at www.loismarieharrod.org.