Marianne Worthington
Blues (ii)
I hear my father’s voice in my dreams.
He sings the high lonesome, he sings
the stormy waters, he sings salvation
I no longer believe in but his voice
redeems me over and over.
He loved the chop of bluegrass music,
the dobro sliding, the voices of men
who sang like they talked with vowels
that stretched across their high-pitched
harmonies offered to the air like a spell
that could quell the bruised heart.
This morning the weather has cooled
and I sit on the porch with the dog
surrounded by green trees older than
everyone I know. We hear the music
of crows meeting down by the pond.
The bruise of my heart starts to lighten,
yellowing, the shade that takes
the longest to heal, faint marker of hurt.
Pop Quiz! Autoimmune Diseases—Lupus
1. Define Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and comment on the [undocumented] symptoms in a newly-diagnosed elderly woman. (Extra credit: find a causal link and connect the symptoms to marital bondage)
2. Which is the correct percentage that doctors will use medical speak to disguise what they don’t know when talking to family members?
A. 67%
B. 14%
C. 92%
D. 110%
3. Urethral sphincter dysfunction is the medical term for:
A. never being able to pee on your own again
B. trauma to the bladder
C. the urethra remaining open at rest
D. the merciless news of a permanent catheter
E. all of the above
4. Describe “malar rash” without using the word “butterfly” or any other pretty little metaphor.
5. Transverse Myelitis and Paraplegia associated with Lupus:
A. is rare and severe
B. has unfavorable outcomes
C. has a poor response to treatment
D. makes doctors employed at Catholic hospitals resort to offering religion as a cure
E. all of the above
6. Where is the most likely place for a caretaker to be slapped in the face by grief?
A. Standing in front of the deodorant at Walgreens
B. At a crosswalk watching a young couple pass in front of your car
C. In the middle of the night
D. At the market looking at fruit baskets
E. Nowhere: Society says grief is over in 3-4 days. Shut up and get back to work.
Marianne Worthington is author of The Girl Singer (UP of KY 2021), winner of the Weatherford Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, CALYX, and Southern Humanities Review, among other places. She co-founded Still: The Journal, an online literary magazine that published writers, artists, and musicians with ties to Appalachia (2009-2024). She lives, writes, and teaches in southeastern Kentucky.
