In honor of World AIDS Day yesterday, today’s Narrative Medicine Monday will be a poem by Melvin Dixon, recently highlighted by poets.org. In “Heartbeats,” Dixon sets a staccato cadence that reveals the evolution of a disease.

At the start of the poem, the narrator is the picture of good health: “Work out. Ten laps….Eat right. Rest well.” Then, he notes the “Hard nodes. Beware.” Dixon achieves an astonishing flow, given each sentence is just two syllables. The reader is forced to stop and consider the weight, the gravity of the situation that deepens, even as the lines remain short.

Dixon is able to convey the medicine with simple, ordinary words: “Reds thin. Whites low.” There is a turn in the poem with the narrator showing resolve: “Get mad. Fight back.” In this moment, he repeats previous lines found during times of health: “Call home. Rest well.”

The focus then shifts to the mechanics of the body, the breath: “Breathe in. Breathe out. / No air. No air.” Time becomes fluid, altered when one is sick, one is dying: “Six months? Three weeks?… Today? Tonight?” I find that I am holding my breath as I finish Dixon’s poem. I immediately look him up, knowing the likely outcome but hoping it will end differently just the same.

Writing Prompt: Try writing a poem about an illness or health challenge from diagnosis to treatment in short fragmented sentences, like Dixon’s “Heartbeats.” Consider diabetes or cancer, dialysis or pregnancy. How does the limitation of short sentences crystallize the situation? Alternatively, think of a moment you’ve shared, either personal or in a healthcare setting, with a patient with HIV or AIDS in the 1980s or 90s. Write this scene as it occurred during that time period, then reimagine the same scene in a modern setting. What changes, what remains the same? Write for 10 minutes.