SUSANA H. CASE
Healthcare
After the car hit my grandfather
as he crossed the street
on his daily walk,
the thief who was stealing it sped away.
My grandfather's head was swollen,
asymmetric from the crack
in his skull. The doctor declared
his groaning did not mean he was alive—
body laid out on a stainless-steel cart
in a crowded hallway. This confused us;
he sounded like he was trying to talk.
Moans of my dead grandfather
mingled with cries of the living.
My mother's eardrums were too damaged
for her to hear what the doctor said
about her father; she picked at a twisted
tissue intensely, trying to read his lips.
You tell her, the doctor looked at me,
and strolled down the hall. And that's
what I remember most,
barely out of adolescence,
not my mother, nor my grandfather,
but the doctor's face
lost in impatience, the white-coated
back of him, so quickly finished.
On the Way to My Class in Primate Behavioral Ecology
The stranger on 8th Street
wants to take me
to his studio to photograph me.
I had stopped
for a coffee, already late.
His leather jacket is soft
as flower petals; I think I'm going
to cry because I covet it,
can't afford a jacket like that.
In the quirky way I like,
his face is a yes,
but handsome Ted Bundy
just got nicked
for the murder of another one,
so no go.
My power pleases me,
like a spiced, salty rim
around a Margarita,
but to get to me, we both know
he might have to kill me. He says,
We're just a few blocks away.
His lips are beginning to crack.
He says, you're so pretty,
licks those dry fissures
like they're slivers of ice.
His fingernails are dirty.
I don't see any camera.
SUSANA H. CASE
Susana H. Case is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Dead Shark on the N Train, 2020, from Broadstone Books, which won a Pinnacle Award for Best Poetry Book and an NYC Big Book Distinguished Favorite. Case is a Professor and Program Coordinator at the New York Institute of Technology in New York City and can be reached at www.susanahcase.com.