(Posted October 31, 1997 ? Issue 19; archived November 14, 1997)
for Benjamin
A skull is the kind of gift you're famous for -
a gift so spontaneous you heft its pounds
through crowds for thirty blocks, while trying
to explain what it's about - this chalky death,
the pair of shades you picked for it. How white
death is! How silky its surface is, fresh
and clean like a piece of art! I carry
the skull to the office and put your shades
on the bridge of its nose, alas! A small span
is all that's left. Beside my day's work,
your gift skull sits, shedding its silky dust
on the table. At the other end
is the elephant fetish from Mozambique
with a cork in its butt, which used to get
a rise out of people. Now, they squirm
and look elsewhere. Death is too serious.
They don't find its whiteness amusing
or its incongruous presence a fit
topic for conversation. Once you gave me
a small harmonica called Pocket Pal,
but I never learned. Then, a six inch alien
whose eyes popped-out. The skull, though,
is almost sensible - it lightens
the office, it keeps my work on track,
and when I hover near the edge of sleep
it wakes me up - playing Pocket Pal.
Jack Coulehan teaches medicine and preventive medicine at the State University of New York
at Stony Brook. His poems have been published in literary and medical magazines, anthologies,
and in two collections, The
Knitted Glove (1991), and First Photographs of Heaven (1994). He is the editor
(with Angela Belli) of Intensive Imaging: Poems by Physicians, to be published in
1998 by the University of Iowa Press. More of his poetry can be seen (and heard) on
the New York
University Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database.
for Benjamin