Even the bodies of gods needed
tending— their wounds after lightning
strikes or war, their cursed organs
shredded night after night then made
whole in the morning. But they had some
unfair advantages. Blood from the right
side of a Gorgon to bring back the dead.
Ichor in their veins, nectar and bread
of ambrosia served up by doves whenever
they sat to eat. We, on the other hand,
must submit to the eternal probing
of healers just as mortal and flawed
as we are. They cupped our blood
with leeches then with lancets, numbed
our flesh before any opening could become
a window into the interior. How much more
do they know about the mysteries of blood,
marrow, bone? We have gleaming hospitals,
antihistamines, radiation and ion beam
therapies; vaccines for measles and flu
but not yet the common cold. Not so long
ago, in 1899, rheumatism sufferers
were rowed out to wherever a whale
had died. Whalers cut out narrow
plots in the carcass and patients lay
for two hours in a bath of exposed
blubber. It was believed this moist
poultice enveloping the entire body
would pull out all its inflammations.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
