- Email: [email protected]
Ash Wednesday
CHEST Editor’s Note: Michael Tritto taught Spanish in the Buffalo Public Schools for 37 years.
Residence on the Road
Pectoriloquy
Editor’s Note: The poet writes: “The poem was inspired by events surrounding my mother’s death from lung cancer. Despite the sterility of the intensive care unit, clouds of dust hung around the sprinkler heads on the ceiling. On Ash Wednesday, the full meaning of the dust came to me. My work as a TV producer of AIDS Lifeline was awarded a National Emmy and the George Foster Peabody Award.”
The reds and yellows of her summer blouse catch the eyes of the breakfasting guests, “Did you see that woman, her wheelchair wheels lean in! She’s really fast!”
Ash Wednesday
She waves one hand and then the other, and her voice clearly settles gentle prods on the boy’s run, his steps and starts, mostly jumps into changes in the chase. There again, her arms pump and she waves to him, his feet barely touch the ground. The two of them, new legs, unworkable legs, exhilaration curving around trees, then straight away, A basket of laundry on her lap awakens double takes. The under view of the chair has just enough space for faith in direction, room for bounce steps, paws and a shag tail, wheels and legs for any haul, looking one to the other, the travelers here, to a playground, slow circles at the garden, colors edged in sunlight, the leash, the blouse, sneakers and collar, her hair flies at table height,
In the hospital ward mom is dying, sleeping fitfully I keep my watch. My gaze wanders the sterile room spotless but for small clouds of dust hovering on sprinkler heads suspended above her bed. Magnetized, the sprinklers draw dust -- fragments of skin, hair, the detritus of the living, small milky clouds of DNA. Whose fragments hover there? Those of the living cured those once here, now dead? Remember man thou art dust I whisper. My mind wanders to ashes, last year’s palms symbol of life’s frailty blackened cross, man to dust. Soon the janitor fueled by efficiency will sweep these clouds away, pushing billions of small molecules the last leavings of the dead on yet another journey. Mary Brancaccio, MSEd Maplewood, NJ
everything of why, nothing of why not. Michael Tritto Buffalo, NY
Editor’s note for authors of submissions to Pectoriloquy: Poems should not exceed 350 words, should not have been previously published, and should be related to concerns of physicians and medicine. First submissions to the Pectoriloquy Section should be submitted via e-mail to [email protected]. Authors of accepted poems will be asked to submit the final version to CHEST Manuscript Central. —Michael Zack, MD, FCCP © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestpubs.org/ site/misc/reprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.09-2167
© 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestpubs.org/ site/misc/reprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.09-2150
232
Pectoriloquy
Downloaded from chestjournal.chestpubs.org by Kimberly Henricks on July 6, 2010 © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians
Residence on the Road
Pectoriloquy
Editor’s Note: The poet writes: “The poem was inspired by events surrounding my mother’s death from lung cancer. Despite the sterility of the intensive care unit, clouds of dust hung around the sprinkler heads on the ceiling. On Ash Wednesday, the full meaning of the dust came to me. My work as a TV producer of AIDS Lifeline was awarded a National Emmy and the George Foster Peabody Award.”
The reds and yellows of her summer blouse catch the eyes of the breakfasting guests, “Did you see that woman, her wheelchair wheels lean in! She’s really fast!”
Ash Wednesday
She waves one hand and then the other, and her voice clearly settles gentle prods on the boy’s run, his steps and starts, mostly jumps into changes in the chase. There again, her arms pump and she waves to him, his feet barely touch the ground. The two of them, new legs, unworkable legs, exhilaration curving around trees, then straight away, A basket of laundry on her lap awakens double takes. The under view of the chair has just enough space for faith in direction, room for bounce steps, paws and a shag tail, wheels and legs for any haul, looking one to the other, the travelers here, to a playground, slow circles at the garden, colors edged in sunlight, the leash, the blouse, sneakers and collar, her hair flies at table height,
In the hospital ward mom is dying, sleeping fitfully I keep my watch. My gaze wanders the sterile room spotless but for small clouds of dust hovering on sprinkler heads suspended above her bed. Magnetized, the sprinklers draw dust -- fragments of skin, hair, the detritus of the living, small milky clouds of DNA. Whose fragments hover there? Those of the living cured those once here, now dead? Remember man thou art dust I whisper. My mind wanders to ashes, last year’s palms symbol of life’s frailty blackened cross, man to dust. Soon the janitor fueled by efficiency will sweep these clouds away, pushing billions of small molecules the last leavings of the dead on yet another journey. Mary Brancaccio, MSEd Maplewood, NJ
everything of why, nothing of why not. Michael Tritto Buffalo, NY
Editor’s note for authors of submissions to Pectoriloquy: Poems should not exceed 350 words, should not have been previously published, and should be related to concerns of physicians and medicine. First submissions to the Pectoriloquy Section should be submitted via e-mail to [email protected]. Authors of accepted poems will be asked to submit the final version to CHEST Manuscript Central. —Michael Zack, MD, FCCP © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestpubs.org/ site/misc/reprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.09-2167
© 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestpubs.org/ site/misc/reprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.09-2150
232
Pectoriloquy
Downloaded from chestjournal.chestpubs.org by Kimberly Henricks on July 6, 2010 © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians