Science Editor • July August 008 • Vol 31 • No • 141 a door Apart

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Science Editor • July – August 2008 • Vol 31 • No 4 • 141

A Door Apart

Neil H Segal

Doors may become closed 

The object was first made to 

Create order, stop wind to 

Make calm, divide the room 

So I know what to vacuum, 

Now makes noise when slammed 

Creates division, with a 

New order of separateness— 

Remember to open the door. 

 

N

EIL

 H S

EGAL

 is a medical-oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 

New York. He grew up in South Africa, where he earned his BSc in medical biochemistry in 

1990, his MD in 1996, and his PhD in medical biochemistry in 1998, all at the University of 

the Witwatersrand. Segal moved to New York in 1998 and completed his residency in internal 

medicine at New York University Medical Center in 2005. 

Editor’s Note: Segal said that “when I wrote this poem, I was thinking of my childhood . . . in 

particular, the ideologies and devastation of Apartheid.” (Ah, the power and openness of poetry! 

When I read his poem, it transported me back to a physics experiment I did years ago in school 

on the effect of air currents between our back door and front door!) 

 

edited by Mary E Knatterud

Peer-Renewed