Rx
By Eric Amling
We come here
These little pillars of salt
Placed into the hands
Of physicians
With debt sweats
A gross product
Of the sex apparatus
There are expired teens
There are the old
That die in the summer
The situation
When a nation
Loses its beloved celebrity
It tries to out-mourn one another
Extort them of their talent
Versions of these chosen ones
Hair flowing free and unrestricted
Meanwhile
The curbs are laced
With water soluble prescriptions
Running down into gutters
Phosphorescent in the streetlight
Medications
Available in avocado
Coppertone
Aqua and white
I suffer from the occasional
Emotionally draining dream about turtles
However
The simple idea of omnipresent neutrality
Is difficult
Too much blood
Spills in my dreams
It’s a vascular debacle
Mantras
and
Ak-47s
Are boring
In the park
Getting some vitamin D
The sunlight on my blue jeans
I’m a deadened sapphire
Reading Didion
A psychic residue of fortune is on me
Didion writes,
“I have already lost touch
with a couple of people I used to be”
I can’t handle fate
The aphrodisiac of lying to myself
The battery flavor of anxiety
Shooting the messenger
Having a god that doesn’t ‘get me’
Copyright Credit: Eric Amling, "Rx." Copyright © 2017 Eric Amling. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2017)