An Exhortation
~sonnet by M. C. Yang

The guy with HIV is in bed nine
The breast cancer woman is in bed two.
The hyperglycemic person looks fine
And the head bleed went to the ICU.
The same drunk has returned again today
The demented woman will scream all night.
Another pneumonia is on the way
As are eleven wounds from a knife fight.
This guy plays piano in a jazz band;
That man was a college basketball star;
She writes books that are read across the land;
Do you even know who your patients are?
Doctors: Ask about their identities;
Patients are more than physiologies.

*

Surgeon’s Song
~Sid Schwab

I’ve touched you places none can touch,
Known of things that can’t be known,
Seen the unseen.

This is given me by you
Weighty trust that’s built on air.
You have granted me your life
Neither of us knows why.

Delicate brutality, transgression deified.
An act I cannot understand.
The space between the two of us
Will disappear impossibly
At one end.

If I could, I’d be your eyes,
Teach you what you’ve let me learn.
Earth and coils, a robin’s egg,
Architecture built to fail.
The beauty here’s for none of us.
But here I am.

If you heard the words I spoke,
If I were to help you know
The breath I held when we were there,
Would you recoil and wonder how
You ever said yes?

*

From Pluto, to the Scientists
~Jason Cohen

Dear Sirs,

It has recently come
to my attention that my status
as a planet in your fine
solar system has been
revoked.

While I have the utmost respect
for your commitment to impartial and
methodical inquiry, I cannot
help but wonder whether in
this particular case, you
might have acted somewhat
hastily.

For the sake of intellectual
thoroughness, I implore
you to reconsider
your decision, and invite
you to visit
me personally before passing
final judgment.

(I trust that this will not
be difficult for you – I mean,
since you know so much
about science and all.)

Look, I’ll level with
you: I have three
moons to feed, and
I’m still paying off
the loans for their
accretion. That I’m suddenly only
pulling plutoid pay hasn’t
made things any easier.

Yours happily last and least –
but no less – among the planets,

Pluto

P.S. Plutoid? Yeah, that really
makes up for it. Thanks a lot, @ssholes.