The Medical Student’s First IV

   by Joseph Gascho

That first vein should have been in the arm of an old woman

who would not have felt her hot iron if it tipped over on her arm,

or in the farmer kicked in the head by a cow,

a man who never cringed when the doctor pinched

his leg to see if consciousness was coming back

but no, the vein they have him stick is in a child

who just a month before was running wild,

chasing cats, eating nothing on his plate but toast with jam

and then last week said his tummy hurt, was found

to have a million mutilated cells in every drop of blood.

He’s left inside the room without a nurse,

parents standing, watching, thinking

he has done this thing a hundred times before.

He wraps a band around the little arm and swabs

the skin with alcohol. Blood gushes back first stick.

He hooks the tubing up, starts to drip the drug,

then leaves the room and crosses pediatrics off his list.

  Hippocrates Anthology, 2017, p 35; Commended poem)