Thank you, Bill
for on-calling with me
last weekend. Recalling
Saturday’s barrage, the thousands
of images. All day we sat domino diagonal from one
another at the center
for biomedical imaging, ensconced
in a cubicle world, interpreting film, divining
diagnoses– here in the dark we come to
an understanding of all: the triumph, the maiden voyage
into illness, the chronic dwindling.
On my way in on Sunday for another round, stunned
news of the death of a friend broke the cool late summer morning early.
I didn’t know he was
ill. As I was
whispering interpretations like a palm
reader, there he lay upstairs in the medical ICU, terrifically busy
dying. And you, Bill, you read all his X-rays
until they ran out