Justin Boening is the author of the collection Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last, selected for the National Poetry Series, and the chapbook Self-Portrait as Missing Person, winner of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. A graduate of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Boening is an instructor at the Columbia University Summer High School Program.

Two Surgeons

by Justin Boening

It was a snowy night in March.
I had little to do. I signed myself
into the ER, took a penknife
from my shirt pocket,
and cut into the chest of a sweet old man
who was clutching his heart
in the chair next to mine.

People on couch
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