Love and Other Erlenmeyer Flasks
My wife’s fourth trial, she reports
back, was double-blind and randomly
assigned. Black pantyhose tied
across all eyes, an interaction free
from confounding emotion.
Like any other good clinician,
she aspires to be disciplined.
Nothing of the animal thirst
of her first. Not the second’s midnight
messiness. This time, she assures me,
the subject proved himself
reliable, and the methods utilized
were rigorous. Or vigorous?
Regardless, she’s probably right.
She can’t judge my touch
independently. My role
is to be a faithful control
against the world’s variability.
Replicability, as we all know
we know, is absolutely critical.
Recheck labs if sodium’s low.
When blood pressure’s wild,
snug the cuff again. Listen twice
to my dubious heart.
And so, my love, may you return
to me after you’ve probed
impartially. Crank up the flame,
titrate, then readjust the dose.
Swirling of solvent and solute,
I’m told, reduces slosh and spillage.
Weeks pass, and I try to wait,
but no significant difference.
Perhaps she runs another test?
Then, today, this: for better
or worse, she informs me,
results remain inconclusive.
More subjects are needed.
More patience. Data
collection and analysis
can be a very long process.
Author’s note: I offer this poem as a fictional parody of the temptation to let scientific thinking overshadow areas of our lives for which such methods aren’t appropriate–or not, at least, primarily appropriate. I worry about the power of technical language (from science, medicine, etc.) to creep into how we speak of, say, parenting (“techniques”) or visiting art museums (“social prescribing”)–and into much more. Such language crowds out other valuable ways of thinking and experiencing. Earlier this week, for example, I found myself referring to what was basically a community service project as “an intervention.”
Woods Nash, PhD, MPH, is Assistant Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the University of Houston Fertitta Family College of Medicine. His poems and essays have appeared in Medmic, JAMA, Academic Medicine, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, JGIM, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Bellevue Literary Review. He is from Glasgow, Kentucky.