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Patient Coat, Doctor Coat

Medford, MA

Correspondence to: Michael Zack, MD, 101 Main St, Suite 110, Medford, MA 02155; e-mail: mbzack{at}aol.com

Patient Coat, Doctor Coat

Our hands view each other’s:

hers not washed enough,

mine washed too often.

This distance from where she ends

to where I begin

is measured in solitude,

hers and mine.

She tells her tale

in frustrating iterations

of digression.

But you must let her finish this rendering,

though you know its ending.

In those hands I see chipped plates,

plastic sofa case, dripping taps,

the smell of too little tenement light,

of urine rained on hapless clothes,

a smell her grandson will call stale

and will define everything in life

he will forever run from.

Her sallow hands, atrophic

from not holding

and not being held,

like garaged brush stiffened

with last year’s paint;

hands that rest, as she finishes,

on her coat

indifferently stained;

this coat with wrinkles of fear and lints of stress,

a snow fence retaining

winters of faltering bones.

And as her words end,

I become aware of my coat,

stiff with veneer, this bullet-proof vest,

presumptuously feigning sterility,

and myself, within, uncomfortable

of its starched and disconnected whiteness.

Footnotes

Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.shtml).

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Free Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My Personal Article Archive Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Zack, M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Zack, M. Related Content Pectoriloquy Related Article Related Editorial