hallucinating whiteness
with pharmaceuticals and weapons
tripping on false pretense
drunk off indulgence in assumption
shooting up black people into police veins
morphine government
numb to the people
America the anesthesiologist of the world
apathy is whiteness
complacency is getting frustrated about this
whiteness is the synthetic LSD
that too many people are used to

I’m spending the Christmas holiday with Lisa and her family in NYC.

My parents are finishing 2021 in Africa, with “Doctors Without Borders.” “Step” (my step father) is a heart surgeon and my mom is an anesthesiologist, so they’re a traveling, self contained, double-dutch, operating theater. Yep, now that they’ve shuffled-off the dead weight of their children - they can finally have some FUN.

Here, in NYC we’re back in restrictive spaces as we face-down Omicron this holiday - but I still feel free. Our course work’s been dumb, but now we’ve escaped the strangling, slavery of tedious days - forget hours of reading, fact-sheets, writing essays, and solving chemistry equations - we’ve got 25 days of Christmas vacation!

Lisa’s having a sleepover tonight, friends Will and Karen are coming up (Lisa lives on the 50th floor, they live on the 46th) and we have every distraction known to man.

Tonight was supposed to be the building (220) Christmas party - a formal wear Christmas ball - with a live orchestra - but now (thanks Omicron) it’s an elevator party - we’ll go up to the 70th floor, pick up goodie bags and dinners then return yo-yo like, to Lisa’s.

We can escape our interior habitat to a large balcony where it’s windy and 34 degrees. The sky is a clear black, like an inverted cup of coffee and the stars look French. The city lights dazzle like a billion stars surrounding the black hole of Central Park.

Lisa’s dad is explaining to Karen (10), in some detail, how his shiny,  deluxe, outdoor barbeque - with it’s lid open like a radar dish, can detect reindeer and send updates to his phone in real-time - but Karen looks skeptical.

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe, Christmas and that the reindeer find you wherever you are.

A trip to the dermatologist
Please check out this sore on my lip
And the one above it.
Yes, think I need to do biopsies of those.
Phone call-you have a basal cell carcinoma
And a squamous cell carcinoma.
We'll need to remove those and send you to the Plastic Surgeon.
That's a little concerning.  
I will tell a few friends and relatives
About my condition, but no big overall announcement.
One month later
Wake up at 4:30 am to eat breakfast
It will be a long day.
Take the dog to the neighbor for the day,
Leave for first hospital with Husband
Driving My Car!!! Scariest part of the day!
Check in to the Dermatologist
Numbing hurting needles to my lips and face,
Tissue cut away, searing hot cauterization.
To the waiting area and another cutting away of my lower lip.
Back to the waiting area. Four hours after our arrival
We are out the door, through the corridors to the parking garage
Back on the interstate to the second hospital.
Check in, ride the elevator and frighten a 5 year old boy with my
Face bandages-they were pretty frightening to me.
To the staging area to dress in a gown, have i.v. attached,
Anesthesiologist, Doctor, Nurses, and finally I start to go under.
Wake up with new bandages, ride home via drugstore and grocery-
12 hours later.  Study prescriptions and instructions.  Made it through the first night and hopefully to full recovery.
Warning-wear a hat, use sunscreen on skin and lips.                              Hope you will never have to take this trip.

Anesthesiologist places mask on patient,
coaching easier breaths,
stillness.
Finished-
he leaves, leaves
leaves, leaves.

Surgeon enters with shiny tray of metal tools,
Patient’s rib cage rattles,
rapid breathing, sporadic monitor
panic breaks hospital windows
shattered,
everything is shattered.

Patient cries of days lived in uncertainty,
mutters about metaphorical agony.
Surgeon is insecure in performing procedure—
due to patient’s complaints,
“Pain is a parasite inside my ears, laying eggs inside the brain, where maggots squirm through my eye making a home in the skull.”
Patient feels no pain,
but screams of
impalement by life - -

God, what would your diagnosis be?
God claims, “the heart fights for purpose.”
Patient believes there isn’t one.
A suggestion;
reason with patient to make payment or rental of new
blood circulation, chambers, ventricles, valves, atriums.

Patient takes scalpel,
opening own chest
with hand inside
Patient is unable to find source of hurting
but reports numbness.

current status,
human.

—V.H.

an amateur photographer waits till a room fills
up with degrees of connection--as people move
relative to prattle's false starts.
just when the deep space of universal greeting
collapses into conversation, the room's undulant
field registers unnatural spikes in noise level--
like supercells on a radar.
as if language showing first signs of fluidity, met
with the straitjacketed primitivism of listeners--
itching to go from zoo-like soundings, to being
seduced by the traction of their own voice.
at this the bluffy segue of wineglasses are tilted off
a tray--their long necks & lippy vaunts sparkling
to an ear-piercing parse.
a lens glares out of obscurity, as if the blue
shorts the blue--to blink back right there.
recoiling hands spastically thrown around deformed
hubs--with an anesthesiologist' catalogue of faces.
our photographer's delectation came from seeing it as
the discordia of the fifth wall.

tell me that I have potential
tell me I can do it if I try
tell me about my skin
tell me my skin shines

tell me I can be an anesthesiologist
tell me I can save lives
tell me that I am valued
tell me that I have rights

tell me to finish my education
tell me knowledge is power
tell me to use my voice
tell me it too has power

tell me I’m a woman
tell me I can be whatever I want
tell me I can make my own money
tell me I can flaunt

tell me I’m talented
tell me I’m art
tell me my beauty
tell me it races hearts