Twenty-five years ago today my late wife, Diana, underwent a bone marrow transplant at the remarkable Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. While there were further adventures along the way (to say the least), that procedure gave her another 14 1/2 years of life.
Blood Counts
In this polite place:
A hand trained in the ways
of death and delivery
cups a pill, slides a gurney,
shrink-wrapped, bubbling,
through sterile chambers
overfilled with hints
of salvation served
on sheets of steel.
Suffering is silent here:
Purple or black fishes dart
in diversionary circles
at the backs of smiling clerks,
when blood counts
don’t add up.
kensalzmann 