Crab Shell by D'ete Blackshire, Listener Poet

Origin Story

When we met, she was in her first year of residency and had just finished an 80-hour work week. “It’s been hard to lean into the excitement,” she said. Growing up in a rural town, adjusting to city life was tough. “I have strong connections to rural communities,” she shared.

To cope with the demands of residency, she ran. “Running helps me reset. I value the brightness and warmth of the sun, but my favorite run is when it’s raining, and the sun is out. It gives me back more than I give.”

When asked why she chose medicine, she said her motivation had changed over time, but she was drawn to the intersection of science and service. Aspiring to be a colorectal surgeon, she liked the physical labor aspect of surgery – a mindset rooted in her upbringing on a farm. “I would choose it again, but think hard about it,” she admitted. “We grew corn and soybeans and raised pigs,” she said. “As a kid, I was always dirty. People are surprised to discover I’m into fashion and art now, but where I come from is the most important part of my life.”

On why she chose colorectal surgery, she explained that the colon is an intimate and essential part of the body that people often ignore due to self-consciousness. “It’s being human at our most vulnerable. Poo is taboo, but everyone does it. It’s natural,” she said. She wanted to help people feel comfortable and transform the shame around colon issues. “I want to talk about things that matter, the things people don’t want to discuss. I want to help them feel okay talking about it.”

D’ete Blackshire, Listener Poet
Stories from Residents and Fellows for the KNN, Vol. 1
May 2024

Crab Shell

By D’ete Blackshire, Listener Poet

As children
we’d played in the mud like pigs.

We didn’t claim manners
but our revelry
and bathed in dank soil
between snort and squeal
to retreat from searching for ways
to reinvent ourselves.
Our impolite bodies belonged
to the Earth.

Now I run through sunbeams and raindrops.
Dragging my shoelaces through the mud
collecting in puddles on sidewalks.
Secretly hoping they ripple through the civility of our self-image.

And when my rubber soles
bounce off the concrete
I draw strength and energy from the alliance.
It’s assurance that
our bodies still belong
to the Earth.

We may try hard to be polite
but we still need to shit to live a healthy life.

After the rain
I inhale the mingled scent of
wet terra and pavement
to humanize my mindset.

I see nature in Us.
But to find us in the world...well

This house of flesh and bone we inhabit
is a crab shell.

Invincible in its shameless vulnerability.

When we are in it
without disguise
perhaps we can arrive
home.

More Poems & Stories

Housewarming

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Language of Diagnosis

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Gratitude

She told me that she picked her battles more and was trying to be less of a people pleaser.

Growth Phase

He ended up talking about his son, who is now his daughter. Another part of his experience of continual growth and soul-opening.

Dinner

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American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree

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Variant

Many of the people he worked with had to develop a new identity in the context of their caregiving responsibilities. “It’s as if they need to become a new variant of themselves.”

In the River You May Find Yourself

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I Am Stuck on a Wheel That Keeps Turning

To her, the surgical world has felt like “a wheel that keeps spinning,” a seemingly endless pursuit towards an undefinable goal.

List

While she kept an open mind throughout medical school, the field of OB/GYN ticked off all the boxes for her.

No Words Exist (Why They’re Afraid of Us)

“I was at a birth recently and thought: This is why they are so afraid of us. They can’t control this” She sat on her couch with a mug of coffee. She is a queer, femme, mother of two who has worked in reproductive health for over two decades.

Where Do the Children Play?

“I always took strength from the way little kids would handle it.”

We Shall Know Her Name

“The historic traumas of African-American women — all African-Americans — lead us to not be the first people at the doctors, nor the first to get surgery.”

One Human Body

“Sometimes I feel so helpless,” said this resident, reflecting on all of the challenges faced by the young patients and their families whom she served. Over the last several days, she has become increasingly overwhelmed by events in the news and has questioned her ability to make a difference in the world.

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“It’s hard to watch the decline and sometimes hard to visit but it weighs on me not to,” she said. Her father had always been an elaborate storyteller and an alive, vibrant man with a big voice.

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