”we doctors know a hopeless case,
say, there’s a hellofagood universe next door,
let’s go!”
                                        –e.e cummings

After the cough medicine
I thought I would live forever
and unfortunately
am still pursuing that trend
following each pharmaceutical ingestion.
The qualified healer
with a few capitalized letters
after his ordinary name
has more authority on Earth than God
and seems to rise on stilts
above each horrendous ailment
whose name I often can’t pronounce.
He bandages my lacerated hand
and muffles the rumblings
emanating from my sour stomach
and usually I am willing
to fall upon my knees
with reverential genuflections
before his balding pate
even prior to the end
of my erratic breathing.
Thus this resurrected Asculapius
with his chemical elixirs
and words of unqualified reverence
for each concoction administered
to blunt the advent of pain
becomes a Nobel aspirant
in the dreams of his patients.