Live Encounters Poetry & Writing January 2025
Home Intake, poems by Alan Walowitz.
Home Intake
The intake goes so long
most of us have hardly breathed
since the nurse arrived.
Meantime, she orders morphine–
enough to make any of us
care a little less. And Depends,
the nurse says–just in case.
The patient, certain there is no God,
decides against pastoral visits
unless the rabbi needs someone
to argue the other side.
And, she assures the nurse,
she would never wet herself–
not in this lifetime, at least.
But please, she insists, see what you can do
to get me out of here quick,
so nothing goes to waste.
The family is getting impatient by now,
and leans closer in to hear any news
that might make this easier.
When asked, I apologize for adding so little:
I’m only the son-in-law.
The patient says, But your presence lends such calm,
mistaking me, perhaps, for Ativan,
as I cast a pleasant pall over the assembled
who silently pray, May everyone
who needs to go
be quickly on their way.
The Polio Shot (1956)
Our parents had signed permission,
so, what else to do, but get in size-place
and march to the nurse’s office?
Class 3-3–the slow readers–already in line,
those rowdy kids we’d been warned about,
stayed away from in the schoolyard–
and here they were waiting, already,
with their stance of practiced nonchalance,
a few of them quivering, just like us.
We never said a word–our standing order–
but Jimmy, small, in front had a stricken look,
and Stuie behind, always advanced for his age,
mouthed, “Shit, I’m scared.”
All we knew were the pictures we saw
of kids our age in iron lungs,
who had also got the somewhat tepid assurance–
Adults looked out for kids’ own good.
Though it might take ten or twelve years,
we’d have final say about what’s good,
and our parents’ tears would be welling
as we walked out their door
a final time, and swore–as we often did–
we won’t ever come back.
Till it got so late and hungry–
the heat in the car never worked–
and neither Jimmy, or Stuie,
or anyone we knew
was willing to take us in, feed us,
or put us up for one lousy night.
© Alan Walowitz
Alan Walowitz lives in the suburbs–Great Neck, NY– and is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His chapbook, Exactly Like Love, comes from Osedax Press. The full-length, The Story of the Milkman, is available from Truth Serum Press. From Arroyo Seco Press, the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night, written with poet Betsy Mars. From Red Wolf Journal, download gratis The Poems of the Air.
Alan,
I joined this group because of your posts on Facebook. I really am just getting to know it. As in some many of the poems of yours that I have read, there is humor that helps us gets through the difficult times, the awkward moments in life.
That’s a gift I think. Looking forward to reading more of your work on here.
Carolyn
Thanks, Carolyn. I’ve always appreciated your support. Live Encounters, as you’ve seen, is a beautiful magazine, a labor of love, from the very talented Mark Ulyseas.
I’m an old guy so I remember polio shots and know about elder care and have a certain familiarity with the specter of death associated with each of these. The thing about these poems is that in the process of laying out the landscape of fear and old age Alan inspires such a love of life, evokes a vision of life beyond Ativan and the vaccination line.
Thanks, Skip. From time to time, I get useful reminders from friends and colleagues who are too young to remember waiting on lines at school for polio shots. I’m happy to have others, like you, who can fully identify. It is a comfort. I’d like to think, as Browning tells us, “The best is yet to be.” However, most days I don’t necessarily believe it.