SHORTAGE

by Tara Menon

The Boston Globe states
there’s a shortage of breast biopsy needles 
in the nation, the result of a recall.
Doctors need to conserve their supply.
Breast cancer diagnoses are delayed. 
 
We mustn’t sprout cancer cells 
at least until the end of March.
Better yet, we must remain healthy 
our entire lives while science
invents ways to cure or prevent diseases.
 
What do we do about shortages
when the Strait of Hormuz closes
or when nations hoard supplies as weapons of wars
or when global warming results in more pandemics,
overwhelming hospitals to prioritize surgeries,
or when doctors are forced to turn down patients
or when the cost of insurance swells to smother us?
What then?
 
None of those scenarios have to happen, you know.
The worst enemy is the shrug of shoulders.

Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is a two-time finalist for the Willow Run Poetry Book Award. Her latest poems are forthcoming or have appeared in AMPLIFY (Sheila-Na-Gig), The Sucharnochee Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Chaotic Merge Magazine, and Grey Sparrow Journal.

ENTRENCHMENT

by Lynnie Gobeille

This old woman lost all her power after reaching Turkey coming from Syria, on September 30, 2014. NurPhoto via Getty Images via Huff Post.

Having showered—I remove the bandages.
Look closely at the hallowed out skin.
I see the burnt spots
The singed flesh left
From the Doctor’s biopsy.
Note the spot she cauterized
To stop the bleeding.
Left with the memory of the scent
Like nothing I’d ever smelled before—

“Burning flesh” she said—
“has a distinct odor."

I go all Auschwitz; all Jewess
All checking my arm
For the tell-tale tattoo.
To be clear here:
I am not crazy.
For one moment I felt the fear . . .
The absolute awareness
Of the harm
One Human can inflict upon another.
In that one second of olfactory recognition
I understood why my grandmother changed her last name.

Came to America
My mother in tow.

Lynnie Gobeille is passionate about poetry.