The Interview

She remembers the interview. Appear earnest.

A pigtailed bobblehead.

I love science,

I love working with people,

and medicine

Running, she was running

A blue-collar upbringing complete with 2-carbon chain sucking parents

A vacuum.

Say community and rural, alot , and Smile

She wanted, no, needed a career.

A career to engulf her.

Too busy to cry.

And then she was engulfed.

Surgery.

The comfort of control.

And while she was away

Her children grew. What did happen to her husband anyway?

Is that genetic or was it his vacuum?

Her daughters were gone,

The shells were there – gutted, hollow.

For one it had gone on almost half a decade.

Where had she been, where had

the bobblehead been-

Cross-clamping somebody’s fuckin aorta.

Reveling in the glow of another save.

Now, left with the damages, the damaged

The justice system.

How do you fill a shell?

With newspapers? Like we do with an autopsied carcass.

What do you do with hollowed little souls

With innocence not ripped away but

coaxed and teased ?

Can we not tighten up this interview process?

Hope Baluh, M.D.

Class of 1983