The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Two Poems

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Figure and Form

I never comprehended my arm
until I sat in that emergency room,
my right shoulder lifted in a perpetual shrug,
humerus dislocated from scapula,
and waited for the specialist from Harrisburg.
I wondered what he thought, driving past midnight
on Route 81, about this college kid who claimed
to have slipped on rain-slicked linoleum.

He arrived at three in the morning
wearing an ironed dress shirt
and a loosely knotted tie.
A nurse wrapped a sheet around my chest
while the specialist pulled and shifted my arm:
pulled in two different directions, I felt
unattached, malleable, and realized
we are four parts extremities
and sometimes only our center
feels permanent.

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Asymmetry

“It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry.”
P.W. Anderson, “More is Different” 1972

during our first anatomy class
the professor folded paper down the center
forming equal halves, pressed
                                                            the crease with his thumb and instructed
that we do the same: teaching,
                                                            like medicine, requires that palpable interaction.
he opened the paper, flattened
                                                            the fold and said this is analogous to our bodies:
Vitruvian Man projected on
                                                            a screen, then palindromes, helixes, triangles.
symmetry equals harmony;
                                                            or at least it soothes the eye and the soul.
soon I found symmetry
                                                            everywhere: yellow median lines that yarn
into the horizon, splitting
                                                            the asphalt in half, handshakes, songs
that looped back to the chorus.
                                                            but then shouldn’t we have two hearts?
I had misunderstood the apex,
                                                            forgotten the laws of perspective,
                                                            and in doing so, discovered solace
                                                            in that which is not beautiful.

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About the Author

Nick Ripatrazone's work has been anthologized in The Long Meanwhile: Stories of Arrival and Departure (Hourglass Books, 2007), and has also appeared in Hobart, Yale Anglers’ Journal, Eclectica, National Catholic Reporter, The Emerson Review, Southern Gothic, and elsewhere. He is pursuing an MFA from the University of Texas, El Paso.

Published: April 15, 2008