Dawn McGuire is a neurologist and award-winning author of three poetry collections, including The Aphasia Café (IF SF, 2012). She grew up in eastern Kentucky and was educated at Princeton University, the Union Theological Seminary, and the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. The 2011 winner of Sarah Lawrence’s Campbell Corner Poetry Contest, McGuire serves as professor of neurology at the Morehouse School of Medicine and divides her time between Atlanta and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Three Poems

by Dawn McGuire

On the Usefulness of the Parts

There’s a sociopathic streak on my father’s side
which I try to put to good use, as when
I presented the made-up letter from the made-up dean
to Sir John Something at the British Library.

I was in my best clothes, pressed jeans and tattersall,
shined combat boots that sunk into the Ardabil carpet
sent by the Shah of Oman. A cooperative spike of light
from the window gleamed at the gold seal.
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