antiBODY
An Anthology of Poetry and Medicine Main Menu Foreword Introduction At the Teaching Hospital by Dan Kraines Atrophy by Paul Blom Barnacled to the Bone by Stephen C. Middleton Biopsy by Julie Rosenzweig Blood Truck by Sophie Summertown Grimes Choke by Alyson Miller Dead See Scroll by Rich Murphy Deciding Not to Wear Glasses by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee Discovery: Negative Return by Tara Skurtu Exile by Lane Falcon Flush by Stephen Mead Fruit By Tyler Chadwick Grandmother Dead, Then Alive, Then Dead Again by Matthew Baker Hysteria by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee If Not Absolution by Matthew Baker Lack by Sarah Anderson Wood Mirena by Meagan Grant Mittelschmerz by Sarah Kersey Moon Child by Lisa Hiton pecan, rodef, clam by Susan Comninos Refugees by Walt Peterson Some Days Begin Like This by Tara Skurtu The Mechanics of Love by Victoria Gatehouse The Needle by Isla McKetta There Was Beauty in That Graph by Geralyn Pinto [Untitled] by Nan Darbous Marthaller [Untitled] by Nan Darbous Marthaller Contributors

She Cannot Let Him Go

18022
by Nancy Smiler Levinson



Not yet
even though dementia
has ravished his memory,
his mind, his self—
 
then pneumonia (the old man’s friend)
then infection
agonizing catheter
and bleeding out—
 
hospital bed
in the living room
hydraulic canvas contraption
hoisting
withered body
broom stick legs
in spasm
organs shutting down
turned and turned
 
She kisses his burning brow
thickens his fluids
purees his food—protein—
spoon by spoon

 

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