Our Medical Marriage (Podcast)
-for SusanneWe kneeled on the bookstore floortwo students scanning the bodiesof new books, checking outeach other's Principlesof Internal Medicine.Scores of textbooks laterwe're a pair of pagers and missed dinners,companions in sleep-deprived nights.We suffered the long delaybefore our only child while we ranto slashed wrists and ODs,sprinted from half-read journalto school play to board meeting.In conversation long as summer lightwe talked patients and drugs,recited the simple prayers of dying,learned how we both took medicineas a life-long lover.One hushed June evening in mid-lifescented rose and thick with fire-flies,the phone steals her.I sit with my half-filled glass
Our Medical Marriage
-for Susanne
We kneeled on the bookstore floor
two students scanning the bodies
of new books, checking out
each other's Principles
of Internal Medicine.
Scores of textbooks later
we're a pair of pagers and missed dinners,
companions in sleep-deprived nights.
We suffered the long delay
before our only child while we ran
to slashed wrists and ODs,
sprinted from half-read journal
to school play to board meeting.
In conversation long as summer light
we talked patients and drugs,
recited the simple prayers of dying,
learned how we both took medicine
as a life-long lover.
One hushed June evening in mid-life
scented rose and thick with fire-flies,
the phone steals her.
I sit with my half-filled glass
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