ABCD Exchange : August - September 1999 : Arts - Still Life in Milford
Upfront - Discipline for Inadequate Pain Management in OR
Resources - Maryland Palliative Care Hotline
President's Letter - Teaching Professionals about Reform
QuickScan - News in Brief
On the Hill - Pain Relief Promotion Act
Still
Life in Milford - Poetry from Thomas Lynch, Author of The Undertaking
Last year, Thomas Lynch, a poet and undertaker from Michigan, was a finalist
for the National Book Award for his essay collection, The Undertaking. In his
new volume of poetry, Lynch continues to explore issues surrounding death and
dying - casting his wry, Irish brand of humor on most of what he finds.
Clinicians who grapple with problems of prognostication will appreciate
"Green Bananas."
Green Bananas
My father quit buying
green bananas
for what he said were the
obvious reasons.
And made no plans, the seasons
giving way to days or parts of days
spent waiting for the deadly embolus
the doctors always talked about
to lodge
itself sideways
in some important spot
between his last breath and the one
that would not be coming after that.
Then he said "Let’s
go out for Chinese."
He had won-ton soup, eggrolls,
sweet and sour,
grinned when he opened the fortune
cookie, winked at the waitress,
left her a huge tip.
Was dead inside a month.
Reprinted with the author’s permission from Still Life in Milford, by
Thomas Lynch, W.W. Norton, 1999.
<<< Previous
[ Go Up ]
This content is provided by Americans for Better Care of the Dying. For more information, visit www.abcd-caring.org.