Why Married Men Live Longer
"She takes them gently from my hands, scrunches her brow, studies their loneliness..."
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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. ❒
