In treatment, when you come across resistance,
let your hands become diviners,
moving past the body’s alibis, finding ruin
where once there was only peace: here, healing happens.
For some, a touch will do the trick. For others,
comfort only comes in finding pain reflected
in the blues of an old jazz piano, the grit
of a grainy photograph, or in the delicate neck
of a paper swan and, suddenly,
recognizing it as their own.

Image courtesy of © 2012 Thinkstock
Footnotes
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“A lesson at the bedside” won second prize in the poetry category of the 2012 ARS Medica and CMAJ Humanities Poetry and Prose contest.