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Thursday, February 07, 2013

STOPWATCH MEDICINE

by E.F. Schraeder

Image source: Kikim Media

By the time I sat down I was
exhausted from my last patient.
Fifteen people a day

deserve full attention. 
Fifteen minutes
per consult.  Period. 

Sorry I kept you waiting, I say,
but look at her: perched
on that flat table beneath

a thin paper shroud, brown eyes pleading,
really? like a trapped field mouse.
She says nothing.  Good.

Don’t accept it, the thing
this medicine machine turns us
into greedy little monsters.


E.F. Schraeder's creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Corvus Magazine, New Verse News, Five Poetry,  and elsewhere. Her chapbook, The Hunger Tree, was a semifinalist in the New Women's Voices series at Finishing Line Press and is forthcoming in summer 2013.