Clark Zlotchew

DEXTERITY

Carefully the surgeon works,
His fingers nimbly move,
Slicing but not dicing,
Yet opening a groove.
Blood no longer irks,
As when first he started.
He no longer employs
Cadavers to him once carted.

Now the surgeon is full-fledged,
His hands are practiced and skilled.
His Hippocratic oath is pledged,
So not many by him are killed.

His fingers cut and suture,
His skill will forge a future
Unlike in former times:
Said fingers in others’ pockets by stealth
Lurked and worked for dollars and dimes,
Relieving the careless of their wealth.
Fingers nimble, fingers quick
Practice, practice makes one a whiz
whether working on the very sick
Or in the perilous cutpurse biz.


Clark reads "Dexterity":



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Clark confesses: "I wrote "Dexterity" about three years ago, as something to amuse my writer group. It had struck me that dexterity –nimble fingers- is needed by both surgeons and pickpockets. Then it occurred to me that medical schools used to pay for corpses on which med students could practice before working on living patients. And the cadavers often were acquired in an unlawful manner. Both dexterity and criminality were involved in both cases."

CLARK ZLOTCHEW's poetry and newer short stories have appeared in literary journals in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, South Africa and Ireland from 2016 through 2020. Three of his 17 books consist of his fiction: an espionage/thriller novel, a military/action novel (under a pseudonym), and an award-winning short story collection, Once Upon a Decade: Tales of the Fifties (Comfort, 2011). This collection was one of three finalists in The Next Generation Indie Book Awards, short story 2011.