But I Still Have My Fingerprints

Dianne Silvestri was associate professor of dermatology at the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine until her retirement. She is the author of the chapbook Necessary Sentiments, and her poems have appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Barrow Street Journal, Main Street Rag, and Naugatuck River Review, among others. She is cofounder and leader of the Morse Poetry Group in Massachusetts.

Dear Doctor
Emergency Phone Call from My Doctor, 11pm
Cosmic Questions
Daunorubicin
Chemotherapy
The Night Phlebotomist
Doctor as Patient
For the Patients with Hair Loss
Skullcap
Poem for George
A Bag of Blood
The Hospital Mail
Hospital Housekeeping
Aubade
Conversation with My Grandson
Seated on My Hospital Bed
Bone Marrow Biopsy

Off Script
Donor Search
Dear Healthy 28-Year-Old Man
Isolation Room, Leukemia Floor
Countdown to a New Birthday
Awaiting Reconstitution
Swallow This
Chimera
Drug-Induced Tendon Tear
Demolition
Advance Directives

Time Out
After a Month Away
It Would Be So Nice To Have
Back Home, Day 459
Lying on the Patient History Form
Summer’s Reprieve
Citrus aurantium
Graft vs. Host
The Nurses There
Choosing the Right Pumpkin, Farm Stand, Natick, MA
Appointment at the Oncology Clinic
MRI
Feature Film: Drug Study KEP DR78
PTSD
Darkroom in the Converted Laundry Room
Readmitted: This Time to the Overflow Ward
You May Resume Your Normal Activities
Please Define Longer
A Club for Those of Us Who Almost Died

Runoff
With Feathers
Wanted: Lust
Flashback on a Sunny Day
Rose Quartz Geode I Found in the Woods
Maintenance Fatigue
Waiting Room Waiting
Retail Therapy
Victory Garden
An End to the Ends
New Life

Glossary
Acknowledgments