David Anson Lee

STANDARD OF CARE

The denial arrives in a language
designed to resemble grammar
without ever becoming speech.

The patient waits.

Inside the body, time keeps working
like a clerk who never leaves his desk.

The physician submits records:
scans, codes, proofs of damage
translated into acceptable doubt.

The insurer replies:
additional documentation required.

Winter requests the same of trees.
The ocean, of drowning.

Weeks accumulate without permission.

The medication sits behind a digital gate
guarded by an algorithm
that has never held fevered skin
or counted breath in a dark room.

When approval arrives, it does not arrive as mercy:
only as delay that learned to sign its name.

Too late is still a category of coverage.

The ambulance appears
after the fire has finished speaking.


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "Standard of Care"


David confesses: This poem reflects on the quiet violence of procedural medicine: how adherence to protocol can sometimes blur the boundary between care and detachment. It considers the tension between clinical language and lived vulnerability.

DAVID ANSON LEE is a retired ophthalmologist, educator, and poet born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A former endowed chair and professor of ophthalmology, his poems explore medicine, ethics, identity, history, and the hidden costs of institutional life. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies.

Robert Donohue

BUT WAS IT...MURDER?

He came to change his beneficiary
And filling out a new insurance card
He put his girlfriend down, and not his wife.
There were no feminists back then, but when
Fran saw the card she was to notarize,
She didn’t like it, and when he was gone,
She had me keep the old insurance card.
I kept it in his file with the new.

Three weeks go by, we get a visit from
The girlfriend, and she told us he was dead.
She wanted the insurance, but both Fran
And I would tell her men say anything
And showed her the old card; it named his wife.
As for the other card, I tore it up.


Robert's YouTube reading of "But Was It...Murder?"


Robert confesses: I was inspired to write this poem when I heard my mother tell this story from when she worked in personnel. All of a sudden I was reminded of the tagline from Dateline, But Was It... Murder? The scenario certainly was suspicious, but was a crime committed, no one will ever know.

Robert Donohue's poetry has appeared in Aprosexia Lit, Theopneustos Magazine, and Ionosphere, among others. He lives on Long Island, NY and is a content reader for Still Here Magazine.

J.H. Johns

THE PEOPLE - THE UNNAMED EX-CON

He said
all the right things
which,
however,
would be hard to verify;

schools attended;
languages spoken;
degrees earned—

all "impressive"
but
hard to substantiate;

a gifted life;
a life of things achieved,
all of which happened
in places far away;

names of countries;
towns;
cities;
schools—

everything that meshed
so flawlessly—

actually,
it was so perfect
that it was imperfect—

too perfect
to be real...


Paul Churchill Mann's YouTube reading of "The People - The Unnamed Ex-Con"


J.H. confesses: This piece is one of dozens that chronicle "The People-" that I have encountered at the Cleveland Clinic Holiday Inn. Almost all of the encounters- at their core -are- content-wise- episodic. This one was not. It was out-of-synch with why this person should be at the hotel."

J.H. Johns “grew up and came of age” while living in East Tennessee and Middle Georgia. Specifically, the two places “responsible” for the writer that he has become are Knoxville, TN and Milledgeville, GA. Since then, he has moved on to Chicago for a brief stint and New York City for a significantly longer stay. Currently, he is “holed up” in a small town where, when he is not writing, he tends to his “nature preserve” and his “back forty.” His goal is to surround his house with all sorts of vegetation so as to obscure it from the gaze of the “locals.”  He is assisted in this task by his coonhound buddy and companion, Roma. J. H. Johns was a Pushcart nominee in 2018.

New Collection by Kate LaDew

Recent contributor Kate LaDew sends word Westbrae Literary Group has published her collection what it feels like to be run over.

Congratulations, Kate.