Medical History by Carrie Shipers : American Life in Poetry

The Poetry Foundation

Library of Congress

University of Nebraska
at Lincoln

American Life in Poetry: Column 152

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

A child with a sense of the dramatic, well, many of us have been that child. Here’s Carrie Shipers of Missouri reminiscing about how she once wished for a dramatic rescue by screaming ambulance, only to find she was really longing for the comfort of her mother’s hands.

Medical History

I wanted it: arc of red and blue

strobing my skin, sirens singing

my praises, the cinching embrace

of the cot as the ambulance

slammed shut and steered away.

More than needle-pierce

or dragging blade, I wanted the swab

of alcohol and cotton, the promise

of gauze-covered cure.

My mother saved anyone

who asked, but never me,

never the way I wanted:

her palms skimming my limbs

for injury, her fingers finding

what hurt, her lips whispering,

I got here just in time.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2007 by Carrie Shipers. Reprinted from “Mid-American Review,” Vol. 27, no. 2, 2007, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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