Pathology
Written from the Office of a Pathologist
St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV
November, 2025

"Look, what do you see?"
Hematoxylin
Stains dark the tumor
Which fills our field of view
And the body, psyche, and world
Of the patient,
A four-micron sliver of whom
Sits stained and paraffined
Between these panes
Of glass.

"Look, what do you see?"
And I, amateur,
See topographies
Typical and dysmorphic
Nestled and wrestling
Like Esau and Jacob,
Jockeying for birthright;
Country margins,
Russia and Ukraine,
Israel and Palestine,
Demarcations softened
In sharp contest
For territory previously
Circumscribed
As innocents bear
The furious destruction.

"Look, what do you see?"
Glands and stroma,
Tissue giving,
Tissue taking,
The nurturing forest
With invisible messages
And nutritive gifts
Shuttling along vascular roots;
Infiltrating small, blue cells
Marking reaction to infection,
Foreign bodies,
A raging, local fire
Which cleanses
And scars
And calls across the void,
To marrow and thymus,
For reinforcements;
That all-important edifice
Which can easily become
An all consuming
Military complex,
Preeminent evils
We call leukemia, lymphoma,
Hematopathologically evident
On first glance
When viewing blood
Or bone.

"Look, what do you see?"
Beautiful, starry skies,
Hills and valleys,
Rivers cross-sectioned,
Tapestries of cellular
Settlement and industry,
Life mirroring in all dimensions
Laws of physics, chemistry,
Statistics, logic,
The beautiful revelatory
Comprehensible and appreciable
Patterns of creation
At every scale thoughtful.