{"id":5734,"date":"2025-04-30T13:19:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T19:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/?p=5734"},"modified":"2025-05-02T15:45:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T20:45:55","slug":"at-the-cardio-clinic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/at-the-cardio-clinic\/","title":{"rendered":"At the Cardio Clinic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Little white desk, little white lies<br>A purple plastic replica of a human heart<br>Hinged to open for explanation, a heart that never beats<br>\u201cMoon River\u201d drifting from the ceiling.<br><br>Nurse Sandy, dressed in paisley scrubs<br>Checks my vitals, consults my chart<br>Touches my hand, her hand a feather<br>Does she know I\u2019m about to get bad news?<br>Is she touching a dead man\u2019s hand?<br>No, she says her heart\u2019s been broken <br>Her partner vanished, a sunrise surprise<br>He\u2019s taken the dog , the Wellbutrin, the blender<br>Now the majesty of sobs, the whisper of apology.<br><br>Dr. Dan enters the room, tan leather loafers aglow<br>Doctor\u2019s cologne, a professional smile<br>4.3 stars, often a long wait, rude staff<br>Stethoscope dangling, ignoring Sandy\u2019s heart<br>For mine, listening to the churning of my heart<br>Nothing has changed so keep up the meds<br>Feed the heart the blue, the red, the yellow.<br><br>The plastic heart wants to open up, for Sandy.<br>My heart murmurs its message: can\u2019t be fixed<br>But Sandy\u2019s can. Dr. Dan is gone, co-pay then I\u2019m out.<br>In the cave of the heart, we are all on our knees.<br><br><br><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Little white desk, little white liesA purple plastic replica of a human heartHinged to open for explanation, a heart that never beats\u201cMoon River\u201d drifting from the ceiling.Nurse Sandy, dressed in paisley scrubsChecks my vitals, consults my chartTouches my hand, her hand a featherDoes she know I\u2019m about to get bad news?Is she touching a dead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"art_contributors":[],"literary_contributors":[440],"class_list":["post-5734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","literary_contributors-mennenga-gordon"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5735,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734\/revisions\/5735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5734"},{"taxonomy":"art_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/art_contributors?post=5734"},{"taxonomy":"literary_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/literary_contributors?post=5734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}