“He's not who he used to be,”
His wife told me
Over embarrassment and tears.
I drained the spinal fluid,
Injected the air,
And heard his low-pitched moan.
“It'll be over soon,”
I chanted,
Referring only to
The pain of the present.
Too much air
Was hardly a diagnosis,
Yet said it all.
The man's x-rays were blighted by
Gray–black smudges of decay,
His brain's grooves impassable moats
Where narrow alleyways once
Encouraged the foot traffic of ideas.
The air dissipated.
He stopped writhing.
His wife took him home.
I still hear his remaining memories
Whimpering in their cellular beds,
And see bits of thought stranded on tiny islands,
As the darkness spreads.
The pneumoencephalogram required
A special brand of negative calculation,
A computation of what was left
After you account for the shadows.
Footnotes
Audio: Listen to Dr. Burton read this poem. NPub.org/jc04xk
- © 2019 American Academy of Neurology
Disputes & Debates: Rapid online correspondence
NOTE: All authors' disclosures must be entered and current in our database before comments can be posted. Enter and update disclosures at http://submit.neurology.org. Exception: replies to comments concerning an article you originally authored do not require updated disclosures.
- Stay timely. Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- 200 words maximum.
- 5 references maximum. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- 5 authors maximum. Exception: replies can include all original authors of the article.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.