print previewback LISA GLUSKIN STONESTREET
Six Explanations for Migraine
1 Demon
Flashing like lightning it is loosed
above and below. Weather, wind
enters through the eye, row
of trees along the road. Like one
sick of heart he staggers, like one
bereft of reason he is broken.
The dance stop-
gap, hypnotic. Slips in
past the interim, ducks
through a hole in the sight.
2 Hemicrania
If the affection be protracted, the patient
will die; if more light
and not deadly it becomes chronic, torpor
and weariness. Cold cloths,
supplications. Offerings
to the gods. Sharp and tormenting
Vapors. Pull the drapes, safe
from sight. Dim
the light, damp half
the mind, and wait.
3 Deity
The fiery life of divine essence
aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows:
I gleam in the waters and I burn
in the sun, moon, and stars.
The world hums
in outline, glow: what he’ll come
to call “the visuals”
radiating, eyebrow out.
From the very day of her birth, this woman
has lived as if caught in a net.
And I would call it down, pull out
my own shoddy wiring,
make trade of music
for this passed-on spell.
4 Psyche
Outlet for unacceptable impulses.
Harmful manifestations
of harmful processes.
Children don’t— The flip
of my grandmother’s skirt,
doctor’s door
slamming in her wake.
Children don’t: She was right,
knew the tripwire
from the cause. Still
here is a box,
a nest of wires.
Gloves, clippers. I strip
the sheath. White matter,
shutter. Know more, but still
they twist, they ghost.
Gift him the case
along with the tools.
5 Chemistry
Ibuprofen, caffeine.
Ergotamine tartrate.
Propoxyphene. Dextro-
propoxyphene. Propranolol,
butalbital. Sumatriptan
succinate, first shot
of what works, rush
of heat through a vein:
surface or depth,
I don’t care. Every finger
tingles, bruise blooms
on my thigh. Buys me
days and days. Calculate,
dizzy on the hall floor: more.
6 Galaxies
Grain the trigger, the gut
the gun. Feeding the baby
such a rattletrap trap:
strict dominion
of obscure turns, genes,
lines. Pull the thread
and a stitch
elsewhere twitches, eye
and an eye closing
behind it. Cat’s cradle
more skyfield
than map.
We tack spark to spark.
Stars thrum
in the boy’s eye. I turn
the cloth again. We wait. 
Much of the italicized text is drawn from historical descriptions of migraine. By section:
1 Demon: Mesopotamian clinical description with symptoms attributed to evil spirits.
2 Hemicrania: Hemicrania (ημικρανια), a term coined by the Greek physician Galen, translates to
“half of the head.” Quoted text, Aretaeus the Cappadocian, first or second century.
3 Deity: Hildegard von Bingen, twelfth century.
4 Psyche: Contemporary characterization of Freudian-era conception of migraine as effect of
psychological sublimation.
5 Chemistry: Common medications for migraines used during the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.