Hippocratic Oath 2.0 | Illegals | Your Poems Are Never Joyful

Hippocratic Oath 2.0

The doctor may reserve the right to dosome harm. He may not pray for you. He mightconsider other interventions likeexpressing his regret or wishing hefelt something in his heart besides his fear.The doctor may excuse himself when youstart talking late at night about your pain,your daughter’s disappointing choice of husband,or what the end of all this torture is.The doctor must refuse to put himselfbefore his patients’ needs, nor profit fromthe wisdom they dispense when staring atthe bruises on their arms from their ivs.The doctor may reserve the right to askforgiveness should he comprehend that lifeis short, is precious. After, he is freeto swear, to drink his coffee strong and black.The doctor may kick back and think of you,reflecting on his day poisonously.He may seek solace from the rhythmic bleepsof his machines, reminding him that lifeis fragile, is a gift. The doctor mayreserve the right to look away, but hemust always recognize it was his voicethat made this harmless, sacred pledge, for you.

Illegals

As we approach, night fills with countless stars;the lights of Malta’s coastline dance so close,it seems impossible that they could drownfrom here. It seems impossible that nightcould fall so cruelly, with the harbor’s lightsso near, as near as stars had seemed when theypushed off from Africa. It seems so near,the possibility of freedom, ofdemocracy, a little shop besidethe harbor, selling trinkets or, on nightslike this, just gazing up to count the stars.We visit, fill our pockets: souvenirs,seashells, trinkets. Boats bob. We drown ourselvesin sweet red wine. We eat our fill of fish.The harbor’s dancing lights, as bright as stars,so close, are ever just beyond our reach.

Your Poems Are Never Joyful

Why not? A line or two that celebratesthe joy you felt when you awoke to find

yourself alive, the beeper summoningyou not to your own death, but to a thing

you could not comprehend. And what is joyif not the recognition of good luck,

how lucky you were, though you too were gay,not to be sick. Why not recall the Haight,

why not recall how much he loved to “frolic,”his small apartment opening your mind

to possibilities you hadn’t letyourself admit. The opposite of weight,

perhaps, is joy. Remember how it weighedon you, that even though you thrived,

that even though you laughed with friends aboutthe ill-spelled entrées at the Chinese dive

(“moo goo guy pen,” the knowing menu said,and “eggs few young,” as if it understood

repressed young doctors’ lack of social lives)—that though you felt so free on coming out,

he stayed there, dying. See the awful bloodhis cough produced; recall how you felt glad

it wasn’t you. Weeks later, underneathsequoias, centuries turned into wood,

you cried for him, but then you smiled.You finally could make some sense of death.

You hiked alone, comforted by mourning doves,and felt the joy in each hard breath, each long mile.