Latir
You have betrayed me in my final hour —
Sustained my life, now dying in a cage.
Gurgling fountain, you still have years to power,
Your fate intertwined with my finite age.
With each moment, I have to strive for you
Just as you worked tirelessly before.
Perhaps your rest has been long overdue,
And it’s selfish of me to ask for more.
Maybe you tire from years of neglect
And make me suffer too with spite and scorn.
Cherish your role as the one to connect
Me to this earth since before I was born.
I cannot rid you; with me you will stay,
In the end, your efforts I did betray.
CV-Heme was always a sonnet to me. If you think back to high school English, these are the poems that Shakespeare used to write and have an alternating rhyme pattern every four lines, until the last two lines, which form a couplet and therefore do not alternate (abab cdcd efef gg). Each line consists of ten syllables. What interested me the most about this form of poetry is the rhythm or meter. The ten syllables in each line are actually made up of five pairs of syllables consisting of an unstressed-stressed pattern. This is an iambic foot, the basic unit of meter or rhythm in a sonnet. Iambs are also the most common metrical pattern of natural, spoken English. It’s remarkable to me that the natural tendency with which we speak is like the beating of the heart—unstressed-stressed, unstressed-stressed, or lub-dub, lub-dub. Hence, I find this form appropriate for the CV-Heme block.
Additionally, sonnets are often poems about love (another theme we relate to the heart). The way that sonnets play with the concept of love can be complicated. In Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnets (same thing, two different names), the couplet at the end usually provides a twist or some form of insight into the relationship portrayed throughout the poem. In this poem, I am juxtaposing heart failure with failed preventative medicine. What is our relationship with our bodies/organs? When the patient plays a role in failing to adhere to preventative measures, how does that feel for them, and how do they reconcile that with the physical repercussions? We hear all the time how hard it is to motivate patients to make positive lifestyle changes, but rarely do we think about their perspective. The title ‘Latir’ is Spanish for ‘to beat,’ which I chose to represent both the beating of the heart and the waves of guilt that patients might feel.
Aishan Shi is a fourth-year medical student and recent MBA grad from UA COM-Phoenix. She graduated in 2013 from The University of Arizona with bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, and English. Her interests include medical humanities, structural biology, Shakespeare, stuff in the realm of postmodernism, and cartoons. She aims to bring all these interests together in medicine. To contact Aishan, please email her at ashi1[at]email.arizona.edu.