‘Visitation with the Radiologist’

For John Brehm, reading poetry can be a meditative act, inviting us to stop and stay present with what is in front of us. “To fully enter a poem, we must first stop and step away from the more immediate demands of life and engage in an imaginative activity that has no obvious practical value,” he writes. “Indeed, a poet may be defined as one who stops, one who is inclined by temperament and training to step out of the ongoing flow of experience and look at it, and to help us do the same.”

His latest book of poetry, Just This: New and Selected Poems, is a testament to the power of stopping, as he directs his attention in particular to the moments of pain and transcendence that come with illness and aging. Confronted with his own health challenges, Brehm turns to writing to examine and make sense of his own experience, from the refreshing honesty of a radiologist to the unexpected symptoms and side effects (“The world may begin to look / sepia-toned”) to, ultimately, his continued faith and humor through it all. Taken together, the poems offer a moving portrait of the realities of illness and the transformative potential of honest awareness.

–Sarah Fleming

Visitation with the Radiologist

“It’s not a good disease to have,” my doctor says.
I admire his grim honesty, I admire it
greatly. “Indolent, but it usually does progress.”
Which sounds about right for me.
Two years of misdiagnosed torment
and now this. I ask him about suicide.
He nods. “It happens,” he says.
When I tell him I’ve seriously considered it,
he says my disease would qualify me
for Death with Dignity, because
it’s incurable, though I might not meet
the six-months-to-live criteria,
just the unendurable pain part. Which will
come back after I’ve exhausted all the treatments.
“But they might make an exception
if it’s a choice between bending the rules
and blowing your brains out.”
This is my doctor, telling the truth, filters off.
I slide down into it as into a warm bath.
I want to stay here forever, ask him every question.
Maybe death is speaking through him.
What’s it like on the other side? I want to ask.
Once you’re dead, do you stop worrying
about what people think of you?
Are you allowed to intervene in the affairs
of the living, offer invisible advice now and then,
a nudge on the arm? How shall I live
with the time I have left is the real question.
I don’t ask it but let it blossom
into the room. This, this conversation,
this way of speaking, turns me
toward an answer.

Reprieve

Please don’t knock down all the leaves, rain.
Not just as they’ve turned to deepest reds
and softest yellows, parchment paper
the thin autumnal light shines clear through.
Please let them last a little longer, wind.
I know that clinging is wrong, in people
as in leaves, but please grant a temporary
exception in this one instance
to the law of impermanence.
Every year we get a day like this
in early November, reckless weather
abolishing the show at its peak, the glorious
painterly trees and bushes I take photos of
to identify so that they might be added
to our garden, so desirous am I
not merely to see but to possess this beauty.
It’s not that I don’t love the starkness
of empty branches, trees fiercely standing
and withstanding winter’s coldest cold.
I do. But please let this burst of color keep on
for now, for a while longer. I’m not
quite ready for the darkness
that comes after.

To-Do List

Start a to-do list. Consult it every day,
first thing in the morning. Ditto
the calendar. No more
double booking! Get new glasses.
Tidy up closets and desk drawers.
Entropy is real, apparently.
Break down the boxes in the basement
and take to the recycling bin.
Call the handyman.
Answer emails from Timothy,
Marc, Heather, and someone else.
Pick more blueberries before the jays
remember where they are.
Water the plants, extra for the begonias.
Finish the book on climate change
by the Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg.
Pray for inspiration, for guidance,
for the flourishing and good fortune
of my friends, for the wars to end,
for the collective awakening
my teacher says is “a done deal.”
Get more sleep. Be more optimistic.
Reread Schuyler and Bishop. Choose one
or both, as Schuyler liked to say.
Clean the bird bath.
Have faith.

♦

© 2026 by John Brehm, Just This: New and Selected Poems. Reprinted by arrangement with Wisdom Publications.