The Waiting

Kurt Swanson, MD School of Medicine and Public Health 2023 Poem   Not enough organs For those needing transplants   I grieve for our Waiting Who waited without a chance   Of receiving what they needed Whose time ran out   Before the Gift of Life could restore What Failure left them without   To…

A Seal through Time

Jonathan Temte, MD, PhD School of Medicine and Public Health 2023 Essay   We arrived in Madison the same fall; both relocating from the Pacific Northwest.  It was 1983.  I was moving out of a marine mammal graduate program at Oregon State University to attend Medical School at the University of Wisconsin; she was on…

The Reason We Are Here

Claudia Vilela Casaretto School of Medicine and Public Health 2023 Poem   I woke up after a surgery And my mother was crying I clutched the stuffed dalmatian the nurse handed to me The same one I held on the plane ride from Lima   Todo estará bien She would tell me Todo estará bien?…

Little Heart Attacks

Erika Enk University Health Services, Medical Services 2018 Poem   I don’t mean to make you cry. I mean nothing, but this has not kept you From peeling away my body, layer by layer, The tears clouding your eyes… —Suji Kwock Kim My baby brother hated onions. Sitting next to Mom, five years old, he…

Grief’s Ghost

Edith-Marie Green School of Medicine and Public Health, Population Health Sciences 2023 Short story   The Charlotte Wymond Memorial Library closes, on most nights, promptly at eight. Any students still browsing the stacks are ushered out, the random senior napping on the couch woken up, last check-outs completed, and research paused for as long as…

The Dawn-Bringer

August Jirovec School of Medicine and Public Health, Shared Services IT 2017 Poem   Before the hill I stand, the sun across my back; a shadow in the sand commands my forward tack, and age-worn motifs lead the hand, the steed, and creed. Embossed with saintly traits, the lure of roguish trades threatens to thwart…

The Chef’s Lament

David van den Brandt School of Nursing 2023 Short story   Turning to the right, turning to the left, over to his back, onto his chest, he could not find a comfortable position because it was one of those nights when the crickets were not soothing, the stars were too bright, the moon too ominous,…

Split by loss

Audra Koscik School of Medicine and Public Health 2023 Poem Loss A ghost of me follows; she’s timestamped with a date from before. She’s unreachable, unchangeable. I’ll be whole again, but she’ll always be there in the past. Two different people, split by loss.

Late Spring Snow Storm

Sharon M. Van Sluijs School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics 2019 Poem   Because you insist on loving so desperately this always transient beauty— tulip masses breaking into glorious petaled cups, great phalanxes of daffodils waving sunny saffron heads and frilled trumpet throats (as in those famous lines, two hundred years ago),…

Immigrant Staircase

Rebecca Nye, MPH School of Medicine and Public Health 2023 Poem   Icy cool in sticky June, the russet ceramic tiles sealed with crumbling caulk welcomed the meeting of a chestnut burnished banister accompanied by brushed-iron balusters knotted like the trunks of maples. Dimpled hands trembled with might up each step, fingers clutching textured cigarette-perfumed…