This is a little non-food catch up post. I worked all weekend and have a cold so I'm not moving real fast on Doctor's Kitchen Monday, although I have decided what I'm going to do. Hopefully will be able to knock that out tomorrow.
However, in the meantime, much more exciting to me is this. I'm officially a published poet. I wrote "Code Blue" following my first code experience as a student in respiratory school. It's been published by The University of Oklahoma's School Medicine literary journal called "Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine". I'm on page 8, I whisper to myself...
I've published a few other things: the recipe in the 2007 Farmer's Almanac, two cross stitch designs, several small online food articles, but this one is really special to me. I love holding the magazine in my hand. I don't know if I can explain it but all I've ever wanted to do is write. I am a writer. I've never doubted myself. I have always felt, when I finish a story or a poem, that it's the same as me saying "Here. This is me. This is a small piece of who I am, the best of who I am." That's what holding this magazine means to me.
Code Blue
By Glenna Anderson Muse
Your flesh still warm
Beneath my palms as I
Compress your rib cage.
Short spurts of blood
Travel your arteries,
A precious cargo of oxygen.
Your mouth slack,
Eyes half closed.
No light behind them
That I can see.
My biceps shudder
Sweat drips off me
To fall on you.
The whoosh of the
Ambu bag competes
With doctor orders
And nurse-called numbers.
And then as if
An actor taking a cue
You breathe.
Your heart pumps.
Back from vacation,
A hiatus of
Bodily indecision.
Released from duty
I step into the bathroom.
While washing my hands
I thank God
For your life.
I realize
I don’t even
Know your name.