The Knife Sharpener and To Be a Doctor in the 21st Century
The Knife Sharpener
Every month knocks that same dull man
To whet our blades. All about him is dull:
Dull gray eyes, dull gray barrow lugging
His pedal-operated grinder. Every month
He acts the stranger. Over his muted heart
He doffs his droopy cap and hawks his trade,
As his proud moleta forebears once dashed
between Alps, craftsmen of strop and steel.
Yet nothing about our knife-man is dashing.
We want no whetting, I explain. Our knives
Are dull, yes, but contentedly so. They nestle
Inside drawers while we serve take-out on paper.
What’s a euphemism, I wonder, for obsolete?
You would as well deliver milk or ice or coal.
The knife-man shrugs to say he’ll call again.
He moves on, his spine bowed like a cutlass,
Warning: Coal won’t suffice to carve a roast;
That no supply of milk can gouge an eye.
To Be a Doctor in the 21st Century
(after Muriel Rukeyser)
To be a doctor in the 21st century
Is to lead a desperate people naked
At war against a raging heaven.
One joins an army equally denuded:
Shorn of black bag, of charm and fetish,
Of breezy hours to auscultate and chat—
The patients ever sicker, their hopes
Horizons beyond their fates, no gods
Nor creeds nor pipedreams to fall back on.
And what does one have to offer?
Poisons to slough their scalps and guts;
Pills that help some to some degree;
Artificial parts, mixed & matched,
As though drawn from hardware bins.
All for the prospect of a brief reprieve
Woven upon looms of lines and catheters
Whether wanted or unsought.
That cannot be all! Surely, there
Must remain some scrap or shred
Of Hippocratic robe to clothe his heirs,
Or, if not, a tatter to bind over their eyes
As they dare to defy the impossible.
Jacob M. Appel is the author of three literary novels including Millard Salter’s Last Day (Simon & Schuster/Gallery, 2017), seven short story collections, an essay collection, a cozy mystery, a thriller and a volume of poems. He currently teaches at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. More at www.