2024 Program for Humanities in Medicine Health Professions Creative Medical Writing and Art Contest: “Care Taker” by Terri Motraghi
Yale University’s 2024 Program for Humanities in Medicine (PHM) Health Professions Creative Medical Writing and Art Contest awarded first prize in poetry to Terri Motraghi, a clinical research nurse and online MSN candidate in the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner specialty. To read more about Yale School of Nursing (YSN)’s other prize winners in this contest, please visit YSN News.
Care Taker
By Terri Motraghi
we drive out to the desert
sunroof open, stars spilling
sunburnt and thirsty
in a dented minivan
crawling six hours
down the California coast.
as the dust sprawls
where nothing green can breathe,
I marvel at the strange magenta blooms
that sprout in spite of it all.
when we reach the old motel
fresh white paint rolled across its walls, a lie
I zip my snug black floral dress
weaved with thin strands of gold
and paint my lips a dusty rose.
today is my thirtieth birthday
before me on this splintered pine table
is a pastel pink cake
with rings of ombre swirls
delicate like watercolor.
I ordered it for myself
two weeks ago
from the beloved bakery
wisteria bellowing from atop the shop door.
maybe it was good sense
or just the past retching again,
but I knew this as truth:
while I spend most days in hospitals,
forest green scrubs and bright white sneakers
collecting blood into tubes
dripping blood into veins,
swaddling wrinkly newborns and
guiding their wandering tongues
to warm milk.
proud reassurances to timid parents
today
my birthday in the desert
nobody at this table
would pause
to care for me.
this reckoning is merciless
tangles of motherhood, marriage,
martyrdom, and melancholia
hospital or home
it is my job
to boil pots of soup
so bellies do not pierce with hunger
to put cool cloths to warm foreheads
so fevers do not blister
to spoon oatmeal into three chipped bowls
so clever minds do not forget fractions
to empty my breasts until they’re chafed, cherry red
so my baby’s screams do not pierce the night
a nurse’s work is never finished
sugar spills and cake contorts in the hot sun.
indeed there were not
thoughtful candles hidden in pockets,
so I pull some from my purse, prepared
and bounce my round baby on my hip
as I set them ablaze.
I watch their flames rejoice amongst
a four voice chorus
too sour and sweaty
to fake cheer.
I wince,
softly push the blade
through rings of icing,
and dutifully pass
slivers of sweetness.