This is the third and final poem of Steve’s that we will be posting this season. We appreciated his storytelling abilities that were ever-present despite the conciseness of each of his pieces. Enjoy.
Oh, and keep an eye out for an announcement we’ll be posting either later today or early tomorrow. You’ll be glad you did so!
Crowds
There is a woman
lying on the ground,
a crowd, cars
stopped, blood
oozing from the
side of her mouth.
There is a man
fallen on the beach,
still as a clam shell,
not breathing.
A heart attack?
There is a girl
on the aisle,
on the flight,
faint, sweaty.
I leave my seat,
talk to her,
try to be calm,
examine her.
Will the plane
be diverted?
It’s diabetes,
some sugar
will put her
back on course.
I am a doctor
when crowds
gather on the
street, the beach,
the plane.
Steven Luria Ablon, poet and adult and child psychoanalyst, teaches child psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and publishes widely in academic journals. His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines such as The Brooklyn Review, Ploughshares, and The Princeton Arts Review. He has published five full collections of poetry including Tornado Weather (Mellen Poetry Press, 1993), Flying Over Tasmania (The Fithian Press, 1997), Blue Damsels (Peter E Randall Publisher, 2005), Night Call (Plain View Press, 2011), and, most recently, Dinner in the Garden (Columbia, South Carolina, 2018).