The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

The Best I Could Do

Mary Kennan Herbert
maryk.herbert@verizon.net

A superficial gesture, I know.
I wrote a poem as a tribute to my mother,
for her memorial service. Meanwhile,
back in the hospital basement, interns
cut and diced, shivered her timbers,
reassembled the parts in the correct order,
building a feminine ship. All the limbs
were correctly labeled, as best as they were able.
When the game was done, the textbook case
had earned her keep. She donated that shell
so that the kids could learn from her then,
one more time, before sailing into ashes.

Published: July 8, 2007