Poetry
Sept/Oct 2016
On the Beauty of Science
A colleague at my hospital has won a major prize for seminal research into the role of lipid bodies in the eosinophil. How I once loved the eosinophil, its nucleus […]
Poetry
Sept/Oct 2016
Poem for Ebola
The neighbor’s sprinkler system hissed, as if the decontamination process were beginning. Pouring bleach, I dreamed how white my dirty laundry, sanitized and fresh, could be. The neighbor’s Ghanian au […]
Poetry
Autumn 1994
Song before Death
I. A Diagnostic Procedure Was Performed I have a cancer in my arm. I write So I can see it better—on the page—The words traversing the malignant stage Of countless, […]
Science, Science Fiction and Poetry
Autumn 1993
The Distant Moon
I Admitted to the hospital again. The second bout of pneumocystis back In January almost killed him; then, He’d sworn to us he’d die at home. He bakedUs cookies, which […]
Science, Science Fiction and Poetry
Autumn 1993
DNA, or, the Legend of My Grandfather
A molecule that craves its own embrace Encodes a message from my ancestors: Survival means eternal life. Restored As though he were alive again, my face Seems more my grandfather’s […]
Science, Science Fiction and Poetry
Autumn 1993
Technology and Medicine
The transformation is complete. My eyes Are microscopes and cathode X-ray tubes In one, so I can see bacteria, Your underwear, and even through to bones. My hands are hypodermic […]
Science, Science Fiction and Poetry
Autumn 1993
AIDS and the Poetry of Healing
Now you were tired, and yet not tired enough—Still hungry for the great world you were losing Steadily in no season of your choosing—And when at last the whole death […]
Science, Science Fiction and Poetry
Autumn 1993
Allegory
Outside somewhere, beneath an atmosphere So pure and new each breath is musical And silent, mouth-watering without taste, So full of butterflies one can’t imagine Because it hurts to be […]
Science, Science Fiction and Poetry
Autumn 1993
Illness
Imagine that the bed is not a bed And illness is a cave, the bags of blood Stalactites, the doctors eyeless fish—Imagine that an illness is a cave From which […]
Science, Science Fiction and Poetry
Autumn 1993
The Doctor
Essential hypertension, uncontrolled,Is almost immortality. The pressure Of blood inside the arteries I measure With mercury, reflecting on the soul: Both liquid and a heavy metal, trapped And beautiful—a subtle […]
Poetry
Autumn 1992
When Rafael Met Jorge
The conversation floundered for a while. I punched his arm. It hurt him. Locker rooms Kept telling us that everything was cool. The college felt uplifting, miles and miles Of […]
Poetry
Autumn 1992
Translation
The words are these: queer, homo, maricón In certain neighborhoods; in others, fag Or faggot, fairy—queen when wearing drag— Not to mention pansy, pussy, baton— Twirler, girl-in-your-dreams. Creative names, But […]
Poetry
Autumn 1992
He Interprets the Dream
The globe that you’re exploring represents My body. I’m the island—look at me, The way I’m like your island, my bent knees Pathetic mountains, my cock a monument To some […]
Poetry
Autumn 1992
Our Country of Origin
I’m dreaming geographically these days. Last night I dreamt I found our island home. My finger traced a slick, gigantic globe Atilt in its mahogany while days Flashed by because […]
Nonfiction
Autumn 1992
A Case of Mistaken Identities: The Human Body
The first thing I learned was how to grunt—I’d like to learn how to float. SEAMUS HEANEY Since art was informed by something beyond its power, all we could enact […]
Poetry
Autumn 1992
A Medical Student Learns Love and Death
The scalpel finds the heart. The heart is still. The way it rests, suspended in his chest, It seems a fruit unharvested, its flesh Inedible but oddly tempting—swelled A size […]
Poetry
Autumn 1992
A Dying Art
for Eve The physical’s your art: I see The bones inside us all beneath Your skin. You write so burningly It’s like Italian on my heart—A love for body raised […]
Poetry
Autumn 1992
Towards Curing Aids
I slap on latex gloves before I put My hands inside the wound. A hypocrite Across the room complains that it’s her right To walk away—to walk away’s her right […]
Poetry
Summer 1991
The Love of Someone
Behind him, saffron hills so passionateI nearly cry, knowing he was killed. I read his biography. It is like Embracing myself—the black hair on our chests Crackles, mixes, bristles. If […]
Poetry
Summer 1991
El Curandero
I am bathing. All my grayness—The hospital, the incurable illnesses, My headache—is slowly given over To the bathwater, deepening it to where I lose sight of my limbs. The fragrance, […]