Nursing Home Doctors

After each lap around the circular hall

the aides smile, Hello Doctor!

and he nods at their greetings

like a general inspecting his troops.

Dressed in the frayed polyester suit

I saw him wear on hospital rounds,

he cradles a baby-blue chart and stops

at random doorways to review his records.

I say Good Morning! and he studies me

in my white coat, like skin lesion

he has seen only once in a textbook.

And I lead him to the door with a shingle

posted outside, his old oak desk

laid out with a blotter, fountain pen

and a spoon for apple sauce he eats

while he writes long, illegible reports,

falling asleep hours past midnight,

just as he did during forty years of practice,

in the arms of his worn-out leather chair.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.