John A. Vanek, MD
St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

Poet’s statement: Poetry provides a vehicle that takes me to places that logic won’t go, a way of understanding the incomprehensible, both in life and in medicine. I now prescribe poetry PRN, but warn that it may hurt a little. My poems are peopled with my family, friends, and patients.

 

Guillain–Barré1 for Mr. S.We spent a month together. I cared for you, you loathed me.I knew every inch of your body, spent time with your wife and daughter, sharedyour most intimate secrets, blood counts, lung capacity, saw the hatred in your eyes.You wanted me to leave you alone, let your motionless lips, body, diaphragmcarry you soundlessly away from your flesh-covered cage to a hushed death—yet you underestimated me, my determination to care for you. I wasn’t there the day of your discharge when your wife drove you home to the rest of your life, don’t know what you told your daughter about me— but today in the park I saw you laughing with your family and I remembered you, your angry eyes, and I smiled.

Photography by Palo

 

 

Photography by Metamerist

Vanishing twin2 From the very beginning, we were intensely competitive for mother’s love, nourishment, space. I grew strong, but you were helpless, trapped against the wall of her womb. On our birthday, conflicting tides of grief and relief tossed Mom like a derelict ship, swept her in and out of my life for years. She never quite got over you, still keeps your photo hidden in her dresser drawer. You look just fine next to me on the ultrasound snapshot, before you starved or smothered by sixteen weeks, began to reabsorb, became a part of her, then mummified to papyrus, became mother’s timeless paper doll, perfect in her imaginary memory. They say that twins can feel each other’s pain, share everything, yet I don’t—don’t have to. Would I feel the same if you had lived? Let’s play a game of rock-paper-scissors for mother’s love. You can’t hold a rock, but I can hold the scissors, slice away at your first and only photo, make you vanish forever.

 

Notes

1. Guillain–Barré is an autoimmune disease that paralyzes the legs and arms first, then the diaphragms preventing breathing, but leaves the patient completely alert and aware. These patients can recover nearly all function if they survive.
2. In 15 percent of twin pregnancies, one fetus dies in the womb (Vanishing Twin Syndrome).

 

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JOHN A. VANEK, MD, is a physician and poet with works published in numerous literary journals and university press anthologies, such as Red, White and Blues: Poets on the Promise of America, as well as such diverse publications as the Journal of the American Medical Association and Biker Ally—The Motorcycle Magazine Geared For Women. He has read his poetry at the George Bush Presidential Library, the Akron Art Museum, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, and Eckerd College. His first full-length book of poetry, entitled Heart Murmurs: Poems, is available in print and on Kindle from Amazon.com. He has now retired from his private practice in diagnostic radiology. Both of these poems were originally published in The Examined Life Journal, a publication of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.

 

Highlighted in Frontispiece Winter 2013 – Volume 5, Issue 1

Winter 2013  |  Sections  |  Poetry