They Arrive for the After-Surgery Checkup

Surgical patients come down the wide white

hospital corridor, slowly, as if moving toward
a faithful space, here to receive ceremonial

check-ups. Walking or rolling, they hold
their bodies carefully like sacred jars.
They and their companions rarely talk.

The minds that live in sawed and
cut and stitched bodies
move now, live now, in devout caution.

hans ostrom 2021

Brain Surgery

A squad of technicians, dressed in blue,

arms folded, looks down at me in bed.
The anesthesiologist's potions
put me fast under before the surgeon,
Dr. Cho, gains the stage.

In my blank darkness, I don't know
he's drilling a keyhole into my skull,
then sawing a crescent-cut. Then it's
on to slicing into the brain, shoving muscles
aside, and peering in to find the Culprit:

a manatee-fat artery stalks the trigeminal
nerve from neck to jaw, lying on it
like Jabba the Hutt. The t.g. controls
eye-business, cheek business, taste
and tongue and gum business--much
show business in one facial hemisphere.

Stressed and pressed, it shoots electric-
bolt spasms into cheek or gums, deep
throbs into gums, electric flutters into
eyelashes. Before some minor palliatives
arose, the ailment drew the quaint nickname,
"the suicide disease."

In this case, the smitten artery
never gives up. Dr. Cho, pugnacious
neurosurgeon, begs to differ. He tracks
the obese entity like Kit Carson, slipping
Teflon pillows under it so that it may
lounge ineffectually, thus liberating
Mademoiselle Trigeminal Nerve.

Scheduled for 3 hours, the surgery
goes six. Awake, I'm bashed and bushed
(tell that to Cho!). Now, recovery: cautions,
gentle rainstorms of brightly colored pills,
sleeping upright (Dear Lord Give me Strength),
trying to hide from my loving, effective,
but Jesuitical wife, watching the brain
recalibrate and reboot. Suddenly I have
a Tom Waits voice and must eat in tiny
garden-party morsels. But: no pain.

I must add that a Black nurse
absently stroked my forearm
before the dance began. It was a task,
but she did it. I squeezed her fingers.
Empathy, the original medicine.

hans ostrom 2023

For Those Who Sleep With Pain

I have to sleep with pain tonight.

It seems to love me so.
I'd like to break things off.

Between my not-quite sleeping
and not-exactly waking,
I'll stumble down an alley
in my mind to get way
from pain. I'll ask a diner line-cook
"Where's the moon tonight?"
She'll crush her smoke out
then say, "Where it's always been,
my friend, trying to get the the Earth's
attention.

                At alley's end,
I'll walk out to a loud and crashing
avenue, a city's slamming noise.

The Lady from the  Fog will walk
up--say, "Time for you to go to bed?"
And there I'll be, pain kissing me,
and hugging me, throbbing, throbbing.
I'll take some meds, which don't do much.
I have to sleep with pain tonight.
I know I'm not alone. Around the world,
millions, millions, have to sleep with pain.
We have to sleep with pain. 

Awful Pain

The kind of pain
where they have to cut
you open to stop it.

The kind that's chronically
acute. That throbs as if
a sluggish drill bit turns
down in there.

Such pain takes you out
of your life. You sit
in a cold room with your pain,
which may wear a light shawl
of morphine. You two

get to know each other better.
The narrative of your life
dries up, falls apart. You
ask the pain if there's
anything left to life now,

and Pain says, "No, not really." 

hans ostrom 2022

Endodontics

Everyone in the office wears
a mask, except for the receptionist,
who asks for the money. The
endodontist hails from Lebanon
and attacks her profession:
perfect. After a few

hundred x-rays, it begins.
I'm laid back in the literal sense.
A massive multi-headed beetle
hovers over my face. It looks
like it wants to feed my gaping
mouth. A mantis-like machine
approaches to inspect. Drilling
ensues. I become Texas. I scowl.
The doc needles my gums
with more pain juice.

She packs the drilled-out cave
like a smuggler, then heats
plastic to cap the gap. My
well is dry. The doc and the
nurse watch me rise from
the chair like a bear stung
by hornets. I mumble,
"Thank you." (I sense
this is rare). I shamble
out into cold sunshine and
have fun chewing on my
stoned, rubbery lip.


hans ostrom 2020