Month: April 2018
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Scotch
Eden Almasude Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States I don’t remember your name, Only fasciculating muscles beginning to waste Nerves with unknown lesions A toe up, a reflex down The neurologist quietly notes, Bulbar involvement entails a poor prognosis Meaning: if you can’t talk, you can’t breathe Each new symptom foreboding Slow, stepwise death We turn to…
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Call me Sylvester!
T. Killeen Cleveland, Ohio, United States I could hear him as he rounded the corner from the lobby. He seemed to know almost everyone in the office; they cooed over him and he fawned at each and every one of them. My day was already busy with a full office schedule, a lecture to…
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The symbolic portrait of Mozart’s patron Dr. Ferdinand Dejean
Stephen Martin Durham, United Kingdom Figure 1. Dr Ferdinand Dejean. Oil on canvas. Unsigned. Probably by Jacobus Buys. 47 x 55 cm Dr. Ferdinand Dejean (1731-1797) grew up in the Bonn Court alongside Beethoven’s father and trained as a surgeon.1,2 For ten years he worked on Dutch East India Company ships from Persian Gulf…
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The Anatomy of Michelangelo (1475-1564)
JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Michelangelo Buonarroti was an exception to the rule that the qualities of many brilliant artists and composers are realized and extolled only after death. He was recognized by contemporaries as a genius, a “Hero of the High Renaissance,” the only artist of whom it was claimed in his lifetime that he…
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Haunted by a living spirit
Bernardo NgSan Diego, California, United States Witchcraft has been present in the Mexican culture for centuries, both in and out of the context of disease, with witches practicing either white or black magic. The most nationally recognized site for witchcraft is the city of Catemaco, Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico. The white magic witches,…
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Finding Peace
Zachary G. Jacobs San Francisco, California, United States Finding Peace Photograph taken and edited by Zachary Jacobs The ocean wind gusts, heady and thick, chapped lips speckled with briny grit. Gulls yammer in protest of the breeze, fits of throaty birdsong amid the whisper of the sea. She sits. Sand conforms lovingly to her hips,…
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Heroes need medical care too
Liam Farrell Rostrevor, Ireland God Pan Hercules Polyphemus I was driving along a quiet country road when I saw the first bluebell, its delicate beauty a promise of spring. I stopped to relish the moment, to live in the now. Birdsong, the wind rustling through hedgerows, and the disheveled dryad loveliness left me humbled.…
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Hands
Laura White Rochester, Minnesota, United States I have long been ambivalent toward my prematurely wrinkled hands. This is a combination of my mother’s distaste for her own mitts – I am so sorry you got my hands – and the various comments of others referencing “old lady hands” and similar sentiments. My self-hand-concept has been historically unglamorous.…
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Thank you for your service
Jack Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, USA US Military Hospital Kuwait at Camp Arifjan in the summer of 2005. As a reservist, I had heard those words on numerous occasions. I appreciated and understood that those words were not directed specifically towards me, but rather to the uniform that I was wearing. Although I had…