OR WAIT null SECS
© 2022 MJH Life Sciences™ and Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved.
"She takes them gently from my hands, scrunches her brow, studies their loneliness..."
POETRY OF THE TIMES
After washing and drying the darks,
I’m left with a pair of unmatched socks,
one pure black, the other almost identical
but decorated with two white stripes
like fog lines marking a road across the toes.
I search the washer for their twins,
spin the dryer bin, hunt the bedroom path
where I’ve hauled laundry for decades,
my wife in bed, eyes locked on her iPad.
I hold up the socks, limp as a mutt’s ears,
and ask her to help me find their mates.
She takes them gently from my hands,
scrunches her brow, studies their loneliness,
catching my eye a moment later when
she smiles and turns one inside out.
Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 23 years in Psychiatric TimesTM in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA. ❒