Kristin LaFollette

Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is a strange thing—
It promises more than it can give.

Either we fall into these bodies 
or we age into them, and the fascia
never forgets the failing or the remodeling,
reminders stored and sent into 
bloodstream as buckshot until 
buckshot is all that’s left.

During his rehabilitation, my father’s body required
readymade calcium and twine, 
therapy, concentrated assistance.

We offered the same at the care facility—

Medications given with water from the tap, 
thickener stirred in to create 
transparent pools of resin

Snow 
hidden in the mattresses

Good oxygen selected like precisely chosen fruit, 
gifted to preserve memory, to ensure the mind keeps 
what’s in danger of being lost

Often, no matter how hard we tried,
the rehabilitation efforts just weren’t enough

because 
even young bones
can be weak with
clot, callus, & hematoma

because, sometimes,
all we can do is pack
the atria with seedlings 
and hope for the best

A Recovery

Before the accident, my father was a pilot.

The first time I flew without him, 
I was headed to Boston with my friend.

She could tell I was nervous, so she
put her hand on my shoulder,

laughed, and said,

Maybe I should have worn something more comfortable than jeans.

--

On the day of the accident, I called my friend.
My mouth felt full, stuffed with oilcloth.

I can’t understand you, she said.

I told her, I think my father is dead. 

--

Months after the accident, 

I stood in the back of my brother’s pickup
and watched planes take off and land.

It was winter and the air smelled like spearmint and pine. 

I can’t remember what I felt when I saw
the next plane leave the earth, but the old truck
I was standing in broke down two months later—

I remember that much. 

Family Medicine

I assisted the doctor at the clinic as he 
met with patients, reviewed charts, 
developed care plans. 

My right arm was bent at the elbow, 
held tight against false ribs
like an owl’s wing: an act of 
protection.

A woman came into the clinic, 
the inside of her thigh distended
and hot with infection. When the
doctor slid the blade into the
abscess, I concealed my arm in the 
shelter of my scrub top and 
searched the exam table drawers
for something to soak up the mess.
I wrapped a bedsheet around the
leg and her blood unpacked the wound
and unpacked the wound until I thought
there might not be any blood left—

If women have less blood but more plasma,
there must be an urgency in the bones
to store and carry vitamin,
mineral, and heme,
to stitch them together 
into tender cells, 
energy from energy, life from
life, good harbor from good harbor.

Hematopoiesis—
The art of preparedness,
the rebuilding 
and survival of a system.

Kristin LaFollette is the author of Hematology (winner of the 2021 Harbor Editions Laureate Prize) and Body Parts (winner of the 2017 GFT Press Chapbook Prize). She received her Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University and is a professor at the University of Southern Indiana. Learn more about her work at kristinlafollette.com.