Family History

Jack Coulehan, MD, MPH

On Sundays before dinner,

Aunt Mary, whose breast hadn't

turned cancerous yet, insisted

I climb to my grandmother's room.

In the stairwell carnivorous vines

that grew in the wallpaper

between rows of bloodstained daggers

terrified me. The old woman's

camphorous sick room smothered

the glow from her bedside lamp

as I walked in. In a lumpy

yellow voice, she demanded

I step closer and put my lips

to her forehead. After dinner,

the aunts propped up her body

with pillows. We circled the bed

and recited the Five Sorrowful

Mysteries of the rosary.

Beneath her repulsiveness, I felt

a dark...

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