The poetry of hands-on healing, and the failure to do so
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In 2013, Rafael Campo–then associate professor of medicine at Harvard–won the Hippocrates Open International Prize for Poetry and Medicine.  First, let us be grateful that there is such a thing, a thing to draw beauty out of what isn’t always. Second, let us be grateful for the poem it rewards, reposted below in its entirety.  I found it merited more than one reading.

Morbidity and Mortality Rounds

 By Rafael Campo

 

Forgive me, body before me, for this.

Forgive me for my bumbling hands, unschooled

in how to touch: I meant to understand

what fever was, not love. Forgive me for

my stare, but when I look at you, I see

myself laid bare. Forgive me, body, for

what seems like calculation when I take

a breath before I cut you with my knife,

because the cancer has to be removed.

Forgive me for not telling you, but I’m

no poet. Please forgive me, please. Forgive

my gloves, my callous greeting, my unease—

you must not realize I just met death
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again. Forgive me if I say he looked

impatient. Please, forgive me my despair,

which once seemed more like recompense. Forgive

my greed, forgive me for not having more

to give you than this bitter pill. Forgive:

for this apology, too late, for those

like me whose crimes might seem innocuous

and yet whose cruelty was obvious.

Forgive us for these sins. Forgive me, please,

for my confusing heart that sounds so much

like yours. Forgive me for the night, when I

sleep too, beside you under the same moon.

Forgive me for my dreams, for my rough knees,

for giving up too soon. Forgive me, please,

for losing you, unable to forgive.

 

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