Lesson

This is a poem I wrote and submitted to the online Tabula website, part of Synapse (the school newspaper).

Lesson
By Craig Chen

To read the EKG, you have to examine
the ST elevation – that means there's an MI.
With acronyms, you can convince anyone
you know what you’re talking about, even me.

The nurses here wear make-up,
and all the doctors are available.
When patients seize, swimming up from their beds,
you wonder if they, too, have a crush on the intern.

We learn medicine from our couch
paying TIVO tuition, watching thrice married
surgeons save their ex-wife's ex-husband in time
for Southpark, another Great American Show, at 10.

You never miss an episode; in fact,
I know about the notebook with the love letters
to Dr. Cameron, jotted with suture-supple
hands, starving for validation.

You can do this, you think, as the patient
waits patiently on the screen. The only
motion in the room: the buzzing of the lights,
the sterile surfaces staring back.