Deirdre Neilen, PhD: Gaetan Sgro describes himself as an internal medicine doctor, girl dad and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His poem "Things I've Dreamed" explores things seen and unseen.
When I was twenty-one and dressed as a patient
My temple prepped and poised
To reveal that mass of milky Jell-O
That conjuress both heaven and hell
The howling craniotome and stench
Of sizzling collagen curdled my sleep.
Besides a few jags of bone that click and catch
On humid days it's hard to say how I've changed.
I've always passed my idle time
Imagining catastrophes, but who isn't
Always bracing? Whenever I drive on highways
I understand the world as a windscreen
Myself a juicy insect hurtling. One spring
I spent a day in lush Savannah
And afterwards itched for weeks even though
My skin was clear and I'd never had allergies.
One-third of patients with Hodgkin's disease experience
Itching. I'm an internist. Of course I was worried.
Everyone knows where there's smoke there's fire
But at that point isn't it always too late?
In my sixth summer ...
I dreamt, looking back over my father's shoulder
At our living room in flames.
In my seventh summer ...
I awoke, looking back over my father's shoulder
At our living room in flames.
I've spent my whole life dissecting that sequence
Trying not to believe in things I've dreamed.
