It’s more of a handle, slender chrome sagging slightly,

not quite level, across the fake wood grain of the exam

room door. Composite. Pulse ox good, heart rate superb,

blood pressure not so bad for being in the doctor’s office,

the nurse said to me. Reassuring. It’s called white coat.

She’s black and I wanted to say how there seems to be

so much white to be afraid of these days. How it’s been

creeping up—the blood pressure—and the whiteness, I

suppose. But I only could say, thank you, for that’s how

I felt knowing I need to sit more, walk more, pray more:

with full intention. Care for that which has been given.

Nothing more than the same list we each make when we

prepare to hear the cancer word. And why should I be

different simply because I have been given the way to say

a word better than most: a gift awkward and heavy to share.

But this poem was supposed to be cold snow falling silent

outside the exam room window as I am the patient for once

waiting for my own news, somehow contrasted with texts

from my own staff in my own clinic sending pictures of icy

driveways, slippery highways worried about front steps,

do you think we should cancel? and the manager who is

also my wife has had it with all of them and one son with

a migraine so bad he’s sure it’s something else this time

while the other son wants us to meet his new girlfriend

Saturday and Dad who says the new sitter likes to nap

instead of work so she burns pizzas so much bustle and

swarm. And I want to say remember the day you were

given similar news, in a similar room, similar age as I am

today—25 years ago, and now you’re 89—how seldom we

consider the rooms we’re in: how seldom we’re grateful

for doors which never opened.