Barrio Adentro
Written By: Rachel Caitlin Morenz
April 2010

Body temperature 39° C, 102.5° F.

Head swaying in the exam room,
eyes slowly swirling over
wall-spanning Venezuelan flag,

yellow smearing into blue,
invades red,
a brighter red than the ruby jewels of blood
dripping out of my doctor-pricked finger
onto the glass microscope slide,

red coagulating blue as
yellow dribbles onto
sterile white.

Liquid Louise for analysis.

Número de pasaporte 401973335.
American citizen,
at a Cuban-run clinic,
in Venezuela.

Hemingway’s house
still stands in Cuba,
me cayó bien, I liked,
Carter,
Obama reminds me of Carter,
he tells me,
hands warming stethoscope head,
pausing to listen to
crackling chest, and
to catch,
yellow speckled with red
mucus in a cup.

401973335 scrawled on the side.
Che,
killed by the CIA,
did I know?

Sí.

It’s a blockade,
not an embargodid
I know?

401973335-results are in.

Platelets-normal
embargo
Eosinophils-nomal
embargo
Basophils-normal
embargo
Lymphocytes-elevated
blockade

Neumopatía inflamatoria.

Azitromicina x 2.
Ambroxol x 3.
Abundance of liquids.

Come back in a week,
todavía-no sabemos,
viral or bacterial-we don’t know,
talk or change-we don’t know,
yet.

Rachel Caitlin Morenz is a medical student at the University of Arizona.