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Robin Stratton is the author of four novels, including one which was a National Indie Excellence Book Award finalist (On Air, Mustang Press, 2011), two collections of poetry and short fiction, and a writing guide. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she’s been published in Word Riot, 63 Channels, Antithesis Common, Poor Richard’s Almanac(k), Blink-Ink, Pig in a Poke, Chick Flicks, Up the Staircase, Shoots and Vines, and many others. Since 2004 she’s been Acquisitions Editor for Big Table Publishing Company, Senior Editor of Boston Literary Magazine since 2009, and she was Director of the Newton Writing and Publishing Center until she moved from Boston to San Francisco in 2018. Now she leads the popular “Six Feet of Poetry” and “Fiction by the Foot” series. Her latest book is Some Have Gone and Some Remain. She’d love to have you visit at robinstratton.com

Robin Stratton

Middle-aged woman with acid reflux

announces the paramedic as
I am helped down from the ambulance
since I feel like I am having a heart attack
this seems particularly graceless to me it

reminds me of that old joke where the
doctor says You have cancer and the
patient says I want a second opinion and the
doctor says Okay you’re ugly too

I am greeted with disinterest by nurses a
middle-aged woman with acid reflux is
probably something they see every day

I wonder who will take care of my parents
if I die and I think about the last dog in my life
a sweet elderly golden retriever named Molly
and wonder what will become of my condo I
still owe almost $200,000 on it

I am given a gown and told to get undressed
why are they called gowns anyway and
also I need to pee in a cup I am shaking
and unsteady but I do as I am told

and then I wait until a doctor comes in and
I tell him my symptoms throbbing pain in
chest hurts so deep it goes to my back and
even my shoulders ache

I tell the doctor I have long suspected that
I have an ulcer and disclose a history
of discomfort relieved by antacids and he agrees
probably an ulcer and says they need to
do an ultrasound

so I am wheeled out on a gurney to a
darkened room and a young woman covers
my tummy with oil and runs a
probe back and forth and up and
down and takes picture after picture
and then says I’m all set and I am
wheeled back to a room in the ER

and then I wait until the doctor comes
back and he says You have gallstones
and your gall bladder has to come out

so it’s not acid reflux and it’s
not a heart attack and I am not going to die
but damn! I am still a middle-aged woman

— Robin Stratton

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