A Scientist’s Advice on Healing
POETRY FORMAT, 8 Mar 2021
Christy Ducker – TRANSCEND Media Service
Try to accept
this fat red hurt
is your starting point,
in the way a pen must be put to paper
in one particular spot,
then move
beyond
the globby flap
of blame
and past
the mono-sulk
of pain.
Change the subject,
before it’s too late.
Sketch out
what health
you do possess,
what signal-cascades,
what flotilla of cells
circumnavigate you,
then draw yourself back
together again,
in a language
of your own.
Your body’s talk
is loose as lymph —
it’ll have you open out
as a tree,
or sneak up on pain
as assassin,
sidekick,
or wolf.
Encourage this
for healing won’t come at you
straight.
Embrace the lack of heroics —
this isn’t Hollywood,
it’s you,
in a plot
that may
or may not resolve.
_______________________________________________________
This poem appears in Messenger (UK edition) — a slim collection of Ducker’s poems exploring “how we wound and how we heal,” drawing on the science of immunology.
Christy Ducker is a poet and teacher of creative writing. Her first full-length collection, Skipper, was published in 2015, and includes work commended by the Forward Prize judges. Her pamphlet, Armour (2011), was a PBS Pamphlet Choice. Her commissions include residencies with Port of Tyne, English Heritage, and York University’s Centre for Immunology and Infection; she is also the director of North East Heroes, an Arts Council England project.
Tags: Poetry
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 8 Mar 2021.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: A Scientist’s Advice on Healing, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.