December 2016
Bill Rector
William.G.Rector@kp.org
William.G.Rector@kp.org
I am a gastroenterologist, living with my wife in Denver. Most of my poetry is not medical. My work has appeared most recently in Field, Rattle, and Hotel Amerika.
The Gift
Do you want a pill for pain?
Some say, No, some, Yes.
Most say, Yes.
Many have their hand out
before I offer mine.
May I have a pill for pain?
Often, it’s a refrain.
Doctor, I need more pills for my pain.
I lost the ones you gave me
(last month, week, yesterday).
They fell in the toilet.
I left them at Mother’s.
The dog ate them.
He was so happy on the rug
I didn’t want to wake him.
Well, Doctor, what do you say?
If I’m in pain, it’s No.
If you haven’t yet hit a nerve, Yes.
* * *
Do you really have pain?
That’s a question I won’t ask.
It would be nice to have a blood test
or a tracing on a graph
or a silhouette of the heart
or of some bones
on a background of black
to squint at and say, Yes,
that low value, that high one,
that blip, lump, shadow,
that’s pain, in fact, quite a lot.
It’s grown since we last checked.
But we don’t.
Pain is one thing we treat
that we can’t measure.
When an ache goes to the brain
you don’t know yourself
if you’re in pain.
* * *
Enough about you. Back to the few
who firmly shake their heads,
I don’t like pills.
Never have.
And I don’t mind pain.
My dentist doesn’t even use Novocaine.
What to do with them?
Obviously, there’s a diagnosis
I’ve failed to make.
A callus on the cortex?
Arthritis of the synapses?
Lack of a vitamin or enzyme
essential to human weakness?
More to the point,
what prescription can I
swiftly jot to correct
a nasty case of independence?
Nothing? Are you sure? That hurts.
-published in the Yale Journal of Humanities and Medicine
©2016 Bill Rector
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