Awakened
Joseph Weiner (Stony Brook Southampton)
The nurse touched my arm
to wake me We slept close together
in the cancer hospital I liked
the bed she liked the chair
Other nurses stood next to her
We can’t get a pulse I called her name
Did you try to wake her
Yes, we did DNR
She lightly laughs
in the chair still
I stand sit sobbing
on the bed
I called her name
awakened to what happens
next
Joseph Weiner is an MFA student at Stony Brook Southampton and a psychiatrist and medical educator at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. His essays, poetry, and short fiction have been published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Bull, and elsewhere.
