by Annie Stenzel
Coming to this charming name by chance,
of course I wanted these small bodies of land to be
an exotic, intriguing place I might visit one day, and not
a tricky body part, essential in the management
of glucose. Which means my sundry diabetic friends
had Islets of Langerhans that ran amok somehow
and their bodies needed rescue. But what of Paul
Langerhans himself, whose name is attached
to the cells? Turns out he was a doctor’s son, born
in Berlin, and then himself a doctor whose research
was not limited to the pancreas. When I think
what it must have been like to be a scientist
in the mid-19th Century, I marvel. And then
the death of Herr Professor Doktor Langerhans saddens me:
tuberculosis was in those days rarely treated
effectively. He did not let the diagnosis stop him,
serving as a doctor for other TB patients, then
marrying the widow of a patient, and surviving
his disease for more than a decade before succumbing, just
five days before his 41st birthday. And yet, even knowing
about the good doctor and his work, I still picture
small, rock-bound bits of land stranded
in some distant stretch of freezing Baltic seawater.
Annie Stenzel (she/her) is a lesbian poet who was born in Illinois, but did not stay put. Her second full-length collection, Don’t misplace the moon, was published in 2024 by Kelsay Books. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Canadian, U.S. and U.K. journals including Action, Spectacle; Gavialidae; Innisfree Poetry Journal; Pine Hills Review; Sheila-na-gig; SWWIM; The Lake; Thimble; and Whale Road Review. A poetry editor for the online journal West Trestle Review, she lives on unceded Ohlone land within walking distance of the San Francisco Bay.
January House Literary Journal 
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