Mourners at the Asclepieion
It is an ungodly hour for this human panoply.
Welcome to a place where keeling in the line is well and fine.
Welcome to Hades, population: me. (Could someone bring over—please—
anything to make more tolerable all this expertise?)
A man, soft and gentle arrived half past six—
Lined up by the medical centre wall's bricks.
He waited a while, then forgot how to smile.
(There's a fat chance that he'll get his scripts!)
They tell you that you can ask any question—one per visit.
You think, How like the Sphinx! and mull it over in the chair that
you had the wits to bring with you this time. Should you decide to ask
if you might live, how you might die? How to obtain reprieve from
thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to? And whom would it hurt
to install a take-a-number in this deli of dolor?
The man ahead of you—face leeches of colour; threatens to tumble,
but there's nowhere to sit. You offer him your chair, rattled a hair.
May fall like the walls of old Jericho
The house of each arrogant medico!
And thrice to doom disaffectionate
Each boorish and vulgar receptionist!
With this bottomless measure of suffering, you are done with
city, country, government—each point upon the cursèd leaf.
You just want relief, so as a distraction you watch the cage match
that forms in the waiting line. The men hoot and holler, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
The winner, you're told, will see the doctor, so you shout, cheer—
then awake. You're still in line. And—God damn it all—it's not even eight!
O, lucky children of el doctor familiar! How unlike us,
having called in your favours, you waltzed in straight from your cars.
What question might you ask a Clark, Balfour, Uchman, or Stitt?
Might Calvin or Montgomery peer once into this pit?
Would Beveridge or Allison, Van Rensberg, Mander, Rogers,
Lane, Visser, Bakker, Baron—O'Farrel, Phillips, Collins—
Or Kazanowski (maybe Grimes?) some respite might permit?
No. They'll simply have you wait right here, for kinder, better times,
and at the gate declare each of your ills, for all to hear at will.
You wish to roar like animal unchained—but oh, don't risk it!—
they sense perceived offense of any kind? Ejection, briskly!
The stalk of sanity, it splits in half. The man who stands in line,
deep in his back a beast, now with his gaze walks up the walls, then
down, to watch humanity here strewn. Who knows? If you behave,
(or someone croaks), they might call you at noon.