The dose divided

Tarek Zieneldien · 2026

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Description

Tarek Zieneldien offers a 2026 poem, The dose divided, on fractionated radiation therapy. Radiation comes in weekdays, hope measured out in calibrated light. Every morning, the body returns in nervous posture to the same unadorned white room and the same mask cooled against the face. The machine knows how to divide harm from healing so finely they nearly share a name. She lies while the beam is delivered, trespassing in exactness, as if the body could be persuaded one small portion at a time.

In the hall, an old woman folds her appointment card in something like a prayer. Outside, deadly nightshade petals gather in the gutter, purple as a bruise. She thinks of Avicenna crossing sandstorms by memory and vow, his companion lost on the road. By Friday, the chart calls it a fraction and the body calls it return. Fractals and an elsewhere of health close the poem.

Catalog record

CREATORTarek Zieneldien
YEAR2026
COLLECTIONPAPERS
FORMATTXT
FILE SIZE1086
LICENSEhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
RIGHTSCC BY
SOURCEEurope PMC

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13280586

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