4 - Alpha Omega Alpha

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You take me back
To The Sound of Music,
To the yodeling Von Trapps
Orchestrating “The Lonely Goatherd” from above—
marionette in my mind for the first time—
But nothing compared to you,
The C6 quad
Who opens a jar of peanut butter
Between two, once functionless, hands,
Who brushes her golden hair
One deliberate stroke at a time
And lifts the steaming aroma
Of Columbian coffee
Toward eager lips
With arms and hands
That have found a voice again—
Functional electrical stimulation—
A fractured, incomplete language
Of electrical words
Running in subcutaneous wires
From the implanted chest stimulator
To the forearm motor,
Brio to the listless,
Like the strings of the velvet marionette
Who dances the dance of the manipulator—
Watching you move,
I can’t help but twirl around,
Looking for my invisible strings.
Jason David Eubanks, MD
The author (AΩA, Case Western Reserve University, 2003) is a
Spine Fellow in the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of
Pittsburgh. His address is: 36901 Beech Hills Drive, Willoughby Hills,
Ohio 44094. E-mail: jdeubanks2002@yahoo.com.
The Pharos/Spring 2009 25
Illustration by Laura Aitken