"American Billing Department" by Veronica Tucker
Poetry
American Medical Billing Dept.
They do not call it a body.
They call it an opportunity.
Light pins him open.
The ceiling keeps its distance.
No one has asked yet.
His face waits.
I promise someone will come.
Circles replace what he is called.
Lines decide where he is cut.
Someone measures the noise
inside his chest.
Someone else measures the silence.
A small machine learns his birthday
and deletes it.
Metal enters.
Paper follows.
His mouth opens.
Something inside him agrees.
In another building
a number puts on his coat.
The table hums.
The walls listen.
Outside, he walks out carrying
a second name he did not choose.
Veronica Tucker is an emergency medicine and addiction medicine physician, mother of three, and lifelong New Englander. Her writing explores the intersections of medicine, motherhood, memory, and the human experience. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, with work appearing in ONE ART: a journal of poetry, The Berlin Literary Review, Rust & Moth, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook is forthcoming this spring. Visit her at www.veronicatuckerwrites.com or on Instagram @veronicatuckerwrites.