Complete Physical

Shane Neilson's accustomed fascination with the two great subjects, love and death, has taken a purely professional interest: he has written a poetry that has fused his typical poetic concerns with that of his profession as a physician. The poems are primarily lyrics, but there is the occasional villanelle and sestina amidst a squalid sea of punchy narrative; all of the poems ponder what it means to be ill, and some of them celebrate what it means to get better. Some poems even consider the tragic point when illness becomes identity. In every poem his patients' come alive, but the main character is that of the observant doctor, chiding, cheerleading, sometimes just doing his duty.

Part One: White Coat Standard Advice The Doctor Readies The Breathing Tube The Death of Leo Emberson, November 2006 The Death of Josie Letter to Leo Terminus Pain Campanology Curing Blindness Ten thoughts before the stroke Before (Doctor Monologue) After (Patient Monologue) Penny has Parkinson's Old Anatomy Textbooks Prescription Pad On Conducting Complete Physicals Testing 1, 2, 3 The Test Inside the Examining Room Love Squawks Through Technology Christ Child in the Incubator The Missed Appointment On-Call Song: To My Wife Reading Electrocardiograms Love Poem For the Doctor's Wife Love Poem For The Doctor's Wife Revisited The heart is statutory Ode to Stealth Part Two: Black Bag Song of the Most Responsible Physician Irony is the Wrong Diagnosis Dr. Grinch Fairygodmother, MD The Doctor Will See You Now Secrets my Stethoscope Told Me The dugouts of misery No ill effects Why we suffer: a conversation My Illness My Illness, revisited Taking charts home after work The law of gravity Reading H. L. Mencken How Doctors Think