Nurses

September 10, 2008

Essay: “A Split Personality” by Anne WebsterPosted by

Anne Webster, RN

A SPLIT PERSONALITY

When I was fourteen, my Uncle John—then in his twenties—chased his pert, blonde wife through their neighborhood with an axe. Grandmother explained that he had something called schizophrenia, or a split personality. I imagined the playful, sweet John I knew cut down the center, as with that axe, the nice part off him peeled away from the violent half.

A few years later when I graduated from high school, I thought of John, and wondered if, like him, my two halves would always be at war. In my case, the smart, creative person and the numbingly practical fought to control my future. Despite a desperate yearning for college, where I wanted to follow in the footsteps of one of my two heroes—the impressionist Mary Cassatt or the scientist Marie Curie—my divorced mother, a government stenographer, declared she could barely feed and clothe me, much less pay for college. She suggested instead that I use my typing skills to take a government job as a stenographer in the Forestry Department where she worked.

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August 31, 2008

“Ceremony” by Kelly SieversPosted by

Kelly Sievers, CRNA

CEREMONY

                                                    Crouched
with balanced ease on sturdy legs Mya pulls
white socks from my father’s feet. Twisted
toes-riding-toes loom, nails thick, long,
and yellow as bad front teeth. She does not flinch,
slides each foot, turnip purple, into bubbling water.

                                                    My father,
who has lived nearly ninety years in his
peasant body says, Old feet… She nods,
begins her work. When Mya massages
deep into his solid calves, he raises
his eyebrows, telling me this woman knows
what a job well done means.

                                                    He did fine work
in tool and die for forty years. At home
he whistled Sousa from his workbench. Any job
worth doing… Our prizes: broken radios,
roller skates, or toasters with stubborn innards,
repaired with ease.

                                                    His feet
soak now in soapy water. He watches
Mya shellac fuchsia on young toes. “You want?”
she asks. They laugh in unison. Beside
the bamboo plant a radio shifts tunes,
she hums, he whistles softly. Head bowed,

she dries his feet.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

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August 30, 2008

“Dad’s Report of a Tornado…” by Judy SchaeferPosted by

Judy Schaefer, RNC, MA

DAD’S REPORT OF A TORNADO IN MISSOURI
WHEN HE WAS A BOY

I found a fence post and clung to it, held it
Called it “mama,” called it “my sweet Lord”
I found a way to pray, to beg to live on
I found the wind in the pockets of my skin
                    and in the portals of my soul
And suddenly the devil died
And suddenly my heart stood still
Still, I tell you, silent as any church
                    Still
And then, just as suddenly, I was ripped
My legs were torn, whipped from my hips
I was flung into an unwelcome sky
                    and when the sun returned
I had lost a hat and a boot
I did not die that day but I learned to count
My limbs, my toes, the numbers of my brothers,
                    my father—all there in the field
They, too, were still alive—alive, I tell you
There dropped by a black cloud, I fell to my knees
I learned to pray that day—for brothers
And for the small pulse within my feeble heart

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

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August 29, 2008

“The Sea Turtle” by Mary H. PalmerPosted by

Mary H. Palmer, RN, C, PhD

THE SEA TURTLE

Shoulder-deep in the sea turtle’s nest,
I search for remains, nothing alive.
The tiny turtles would have climbed
over each other, forming a living ladder
out of their sandy birth canal
leaving only the unhatched and dead behind.
Mongoose would have gotten any stragglers.
I am here only to count egg shells.

My hand reaches bottom and scoops up
sand and bits of leathery shells. In their midst,
I find a black soft lump, a hatchling left behind.
It remains listless until I gently stroke its belly
until its life flickers and catches hold
as a flame lays claim to a
candle wick.

It doesn’t have much of a chance.
Pelicans already circle. But waiting until night
so it can follow the moon to the
water is a death sentence too. I place it on
the sloping beach and whisper a prayer.
Without a backward glance
it paddles towards the water.
The waves are merciless,
cartwheeling it in the foam.
Head over tail. Head over tail.

But it finds a current and starts its slow
submerged swim, a speck in the sea.
Too far in to return, the turtle breaks the
glimmering surface and takes its first
sea-borne breath.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

__________

Mary H. Palmer: “Poetry has been an important part of my life for many years. I see life as interwoven events and emotions forming unique patterns. ‘The Sea Turtle’ sprang into life after taking a morning walk with a park ranger and watching her investigate a disrupted sea turtle nest. This poem was my attempt to convey the irrepressible drive to survive in a hostile world.”

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August 27, 2008

“Nursing Internship, LA County, 1990” by Tracy KleinPosted by

Tracy Klein, RN, MS, FNP

NURSING INTERNSHIP, LA COUNTY, 1990

As the cancer patients died you smoked
Another cigarette down by the dormitory pool, arm
Dangling in the airless heat. A big
Pink swimsuit wrapped you like a blanket.
We’d wrestled the pool from the medical students
For the afternoon, as they studied up on bones.

I was swaddling newborns all summer,
Purple heads aiming for the room air. Their
Bewildered mothers cradled them, fingers starred
In green tattoos, while palm trees waved
A first hello. It’s a rough life:
The scratch of bad guitars outside the
Chicken Hut, girls trying on sunglasses so the men
Can’t see their eyes. Often it’s a candle or a prayer between
Themselves and death: a glance, a finger sign.

You fed the public hospital patients through various tubes
And afterwards drank private drinks down by the beach.
“It always starts so small” you say
Gesturing at the loss of whole limbs and breasts,
The smallness of their cancer growing. Released from
Work, I see the babies nightly in my dreams.
They rock themselves in plastic Bassinets.
Reach up with toes and fingers wiggling,
Proud of all their parts.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

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August 9, 2008

“Nursing Note #8” by Sean Aden LovelacePosted by

Sean Aden Lovelace, RN, BSN

NURSING NOTE #8

It’s amazing where my mind goes as I stand above gurneys. One time a large Mylar balloon. One time arterial red. One time I’m an opossum in the parking lot, oil sparkle early morning, skulking beneath cars. The first shift nurses feed him donuts and cigarette butts. The opossum mind I admire, the way-out, unhinged and pointing. What do you think when you’re playing dead? One time they found me in the custodian’s closet. What the hell you doing in there? Nothing. Just taking my break, my 15 minutes, just breathing—inspiration, expiration. Sometimes I go far away; feel like the atmosphere. Lysol and wet mop. Dank air, darkness. I just close my eyes and inhale. Here’s one way to chart a pulse: draw two eyes, a dot for a nose, a smile in the center of the zero.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

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August 8, 2008

“Open House” by Allan NicolettiPosted by

Allan Nicoletti, RN, BSN

OPEN HOUSE

It’s the Day of the Dead. I send out invitations,
set extra places at the table. Guests arrive. Everyone is
polite, nothing like you’d think, nothing like the movies
so preoccupied with flesh. My grandma Laura has grown
indistinct. Her candy dish is full of dust. There is the smell
of fresh baked bread drifting from her green house,
drifting the length of the endless driveway where
we learned to skate. I ask her about a nightmare
I had there. The room had sunk to the bottom of the sea.
Door hinges turned to sea snakes. A giant crab sat on the floor.
She tells my mother that I am strange and smiles and offers
the empty dish, a taste of dust. I ask about grandpa.
He’s at the mouth of the Klamath. Where would you be?
Nicole arrives with Garland and Little John.
I cannot speak. We sit out back by the pool of grief.
A crew from the morgue crashes the party. The word is out.
The door is open. The full moon sinks with the Seven Sisters trailing,
portending our doom. I point it out over a glass of wine
to all within earshot. The dead find this funny. All manner
of howling ensues. I begin to loosen up, begin to enjoy myself.
This is my kind of party. I don’t ever have to get out of my chair.
I could do this every weekend, open house for the dead.
There is, of course, the danger, like hanging out with the wrong kids
after school. I begin to take chances. Charlie Sevenoaks
challenges me to a game of truth or dare. Dare, I say,
and find myself standing on the roof overlooking the pool.
Oh I can fly, no problem—I’m not afraid of anything.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

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