Old Man with a Hemorrhagic Stroke

   by Joseph Gascho

They paged from Emergency and I rushed

there to find him weak as a lamb on the left

and strong as his usual lion on his right, saying garbage

when he meant garage (maybe) and I was sad

but I was glad I’d put him on the blood thinner

that the books and the lawyers said I should for

his fibrillating heart, thinking how I’d fret had I not pushed

the pill that was supposed to stop the clots

from breaking from the heart and heading to the head.

And then the scan came back that showed instead of clots

it was the blood itself, burst from the pipe, 

that stroked the brain. Blood that had leaked

because he took the pill to thin the blood. The pill

I’d put him on. The pill he asked me time and time 

why he should take. I’d talked about the odds,

said yes, the pill might make him bleed into his head

but chance of that was less by four the chance of clots

if he’d not take the pill. He said you are the doc.

And now he smiles and shakes my hand, 

says you are the dog. 

  Hippocrates Anthology, 2018, p 30.. (Commended poem).