POEM
Colonoscopy Sonnet
On the news tonight, a presidential
colonoscopy — a tale of how
for three whole hours the chief exec of trouble
handed trouble to his vice (although
no double trouble came), but then no more
details revealed: no bacterial armies
multiplying in a flare of war
among kingly polyps & no kinky creases.
Welcome to the presidential gut,
bubble gum pink, not a spot of shit
(after a quick administrative cleanout)
where global decisions stir & sit in state,
and the first physician’s mighty pointer traces
only microdrops of blood in secret places.
Source: Poetry (May 2008).
This poem originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Poetry.
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Sandra M. Gilbert has earned acclaim as a literary critic and as a poet. Her study, The . . . MORE »
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