Rejection Speech
that you can’t trust a teenager
is a lesson I learned the hard way
because I trusted Tommy who was
thirteen when I met him but with
the physique of a four-year-old
thanks to a heart the size of a
half deflated beachball and just as robust
when it came to pumping blood and
although some of my colleagues said
he was too sick for me to do anything
I transplanted his heart and
by the following spring he played
Little League–not well; it turns out
that hitting a curve ball can’t
be transplanted–and over the
following years he took his antirejection
drugs and made his appointments
and developed a side hustle talking
to civic groups to raise money
for the hospital until five years later
when he decided taking meds
sucked so he quit taking them
(rejection, obituary) and if Tommy
was the only teenager who did this
that would be tragic enough but Charlene
age 14 did the same thing because
the drugs grew hair on her forehead
and her back–talking Lon Chaney
wolfman pelt here–and Derek at 16
moved out of his mom’s house
to live in the trunk of a friend’s car
before giving up and that shit happens
over and over and over so don’t say a
fucking word to me when I transplant
kids who are mentally challenged
because one thing I can count on is
they’re supervised so closely they never
miss a dose and the other thing I can
count on is I never have to ask myself
should I have put that heart into somebody else
-Originally published by Sheila-Na-Gig
Operating Theater
When I give the order to start the pump, and the maimed
heart muscle collapses like the rotten rubber of a busted out two-ply tire,
I face the possibility that my meager vein grafts won’t get this patient
out of the room alive. He could die on the table, right in front of me.
Or he might succumb later tonight, following a brief struggle. Or
linger a few days more, until my siege of drugs and machines
and consultant opinions prove futile. The answers must
await the climax of the operation and the denouement.
When I think about this stage, these special effects,
and the remote possibility of a happy ending,
I wonder why it took me so long to grasp the
meaning of the words Operating Theater.
In this drama I play two roles,
protagonist and spectator,
actor who does not
know the ending,
audience member
who cannot find
the exit.
-Originally published by The Autoethnographer
Doctor Ruiz didn’t quit his job today
but he must have thought about it when we came in for our morning shift,
and Jim, who pulled nights this week, signed out the ICU patients–
eight on ventilators, ten stable off them, six who could go either way.
Oh, and Mrs. Bowen, the one you intubated yesterday?
She boxed last night.
I bet he thought about it again when the coding clerk
asked him to revise his progress notes on Mrs. Bowen,
whom he’d taken care of for a month.
Can you add more diagnoses? the clerk asked. For accuracy.
Doctor Ruiz translated: For jacking up the reimbursement.
Maybe he thought about it again when he intubated room 23.
I asked, Is that the guy? and we both knew who I meant–
the guy who didn’t practice distancing,
the guy who said only pussies wear masks,
the guy who learned that Doctor Ruiz
was a Dr from the DR and from then on
referred to Doctor Ruiz as Sammy Sosa.
I know he thought about it when he told me over lunch,
This place treats us like the fucking janitors.
I showed him the Espada poem,
the one about the janitor who quit his job.
He said, Write a poem about me.
Call it Doctor Ruiz finally quits.
Yet I can tell all thoughts of quitting are forgotten
by the time our twelve hours end
and we drag ass out to the garage.
Last year nights like this we went home and texted
each other while watching Cubs highlights.
But in this spring of 2020 only the virus is catching,
they may not play any baseball this season,
and the only ones I can say for sure
will step up to the plate tomorrow
are me and Doctor Ruiz.
-Originally published in december and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Flavian Mark Lupinetti, a poet, fiction writer, and cardiac surgeon, received his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, december, Redivider, Sheila-Na-Gig, and ZYZZYVA. Mark lives in New Mexico.
Really excellent writing!