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At the Nephrologist's Office in Portland, Maine

Today's poem is At the Nephrologist's Office in Portland, Maine by William Varner. Is is read by Samaa Abdurraqib.

At the Nephrologist's Office in Portland, Maine

But O how beautiful the word nephrology is
I said to my friend last night over unsalted fish.

His fork scraped his plate as he took
the last sip of his wine and said, I guess.

Nephele, goddess of clouds, has come with me
this morning to bead my winter coat.

Parents carry children, cup hands to their heads.
A nurse calls me by my full first name,

the only time I hear it now since my mother lost
a letter a week and searches for them in her hospice bed.

The nurse pulls my arm straight, a thin
needle twitches in the gauge, my pulse calms.

She's always late, the nephrologist, but I can
hear her through the walls with other patients,

then ruffle through my chart outside the door.
She slides the chair across the floor and her eyes navigate

through test results across the screen, red exclamation points
like the fishing buoys my son keeps in the Gulf of Maine.

Outside the window the buds keep their fists closed,
a branch lays in matted grass next to the road,

an oar searching for its ship — the tree
that split in February's wind and ice storm.

And O how beautiful it is, how kind, when the doctor
pauses before the slow rotation of her chair.