Remarkably fit at 238,
Sam remembered signing London Contract,
he foraged for timber in Adirondacks,
filched Original Peoples’ food and land,
rallied against Confederates disloyal to Union,
built Liberty ships, crossed English Channel,
trotted in tanks through Mogadishu dirt streets,
tossed irreverent Iraq back into Stone age.
Sam had no reason to worry about lipid profile,
elevated sugar level, high PSA,
only scabrous junkies & “backsliders”
had reason to fear bad blood work results.
An R.N. tightened rubber cord
around Sam’s right bicep.
Felt for worthy vein, told Sam relax,
he’ll soon feel cold pinch, vial of drawn blood,
a flow faster than Prohibition Rumrunners.
Calm as Chicago pit bull,
Sam watched Good Morning America,
“two Arizona teens found dead,
for shame, Russia challenges US domination.”
Sam lacked nothing,
had Happy Family Health Insurance,
backing of International Community Babel;
his Blue Cross/Double Cross status secure.
Plantation cotton ball
delicately placed upon Sam’s purple vein –
He had no reason to fear lung cancer,
US smokestack industry disappeared,
Splenda sweetener profits where they should be.
As advised by Doctor Kildare,
Sam swore-off candy bars & tobacco;
no need for worry, he fasted over 12-hours,
made Santa Maria odyssey to McDonald’s.
Soon… another egg, bacon, cheese biscuit
circulated through Sam’s bloodstream,
come March 2014, for exercise,
he climbed Washington’s obelisk…
Blood, blood, blood,
I long for innocent blood to pour over me.
At play, Taylor Borough boys slit wrists,
pressed together blood-on-blood, made bond.
Children grown old, they go to clinics in droves,
blood health monitored for toxins.
There are no A.M.A. approved tests for vices & sin,
& Sam’s healthy liver continues to volatilize U.S. toxins,
which there are plenty, I am one infected.
A bulbous “brown vein spotted… its time had come,”1
tourniquet applied, cold needle entry into my arm,
a pinch, saccharine blood entered vial, clenched fist.
Aah, aah!
Bloodstained cotton, pale-faced health care,
I will never let go redskin medicine.
• Author’s note: This past Tuesday, March 4th, considered “Employed at Will,” I lost my job. In our times, the bond which money forges between people and work is undergoing designed demolition. Saturday morning, I went for perhaps a final blood work profile while still covered by a Company health insurance plan. Later, of course, final paycheck in electric account, unemployed, and trying to come to terms with the general national sickness, I wrote this poem about moral health maintenance & blood testing.
- From the late-Senator Eugene McCarthy’s poem “The Maple Tree.”