Arthur Ginsberg, MD the Brain Men Have Convened in San Diego

REFLECTIONS: NEUROLOGY AND THE HUMANITIES Poems

Section Editor Michael H. Brooke, MD

Arthur Ginsberg, MD BASELINE OF THE SOUL CROSSING OVER The brain men have convened in San Diego, In her white paddock wunderkindt from venerable ivory towers, the woman dreams a mare, Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Arthur who perform flanks churning Ginsberg, 10740 Meridian Ave. on Powerpoint when the lights go dim. N., Suite 107, Seattle, WA to stay afloat. Unaware 98133 Western blots, schematics the distance is too great. [email protected] of programmed cell death, little proteins Ten to twenty knots with names like Caspase, Bax and Bim flash across the screen, enough on the inland waves but a hard wind to make a neocortex blush fractures the surface with the intimacy of it all, as if the smartest really believe everyday. Some shining water they will get to the bottom of our heads streaming in rivulets with knockout mice and missense nucleotides, across her back putting their probes into the most secret lathered like a face, corners of our delight, enraptured and the withers bunched by nomenclature, obsessed in one surge with undressing mystery’s manikin down to her wire and linen. beneath all the swift torrents of felicity and faith, No wonder I flinch at coffee break her mane fanned when these bow-tied voyeurs partake like a wedding train of petite sandwiches and savories, for steerage, then spec out name tags and overhead before pontification. Creation draws her divine cloak tighter the relentless sun, with each yelp of the onion skin, insolent every probe and assay, until to the bit, the pilgrimage collapses into itself, bulging eyes, frothing lips, and the baseline of the soul remains the mallard she passes vibrating like a shadow on snow, smoldering like an emerald indivisible as absolute zero. around the water’s neck that seals now in quiet lap this struggle under tungsten lamps, the monitor’s vicious hum that marks the end of her run in a ripple.

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