The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Two Poems

and

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Sevenling (He Is Doctor)

He is doctor to a thousand
girls, husband to a woman
and father to a boy.

The girls complain of their discharges,
the woman about his hours spent on them
and he about the cost of it all.

The boy alone doesn't complain.

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Hyperemesis Gravidarum

Her jeans no longer hugged her bony frame;
emaciated, sunken cheeks and eyes
betrayed a face once worthy of her name--
Venus--a goddess starved and undersize.

The dark line and revealing little bulge
which grew above her waist gave subtle clues.
The ceaseless morning sickness, though, divulged
her pregnancy, despite her senseless ruse.

Six months the girl endured her Calvary
of sepsis, needles, bruises, blood clots, pain--
all complications of technology
and artificial nourishment by vein.

Six months the girl endured her crown of thorns
to save a babe she'd hoped would not be born.

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About the Author

James S. Wilk is a physician in Denver, Colorado, specializing in internal medicine and medical disorders complicating pregnancy. His poetry has recently appeared or will appear in The Pharos, The Blue Unicorn, Contemporary Sonnet, The Lyric, Measure, and The Panhandler Quarterly.

Published: July 20, 2007