Probing Questions

                                                                   The cerebral arteriogram,

                                                                   How the doctors love it!

                                                                   But what with all the risk and pain,

                                                                   Should I have told them, “Shove it?”

 

                                                                   The money that it siphons in

                                                                   Brings luxury and leisure

                                                                   Or the patient’s early end

                                                                   From traumatic seizure.

 

                                                                   They pierce you with a little tube

                                                                   Near the petcock of the torso

                                                                   And push it to the collarbone,

                                                                   And then a little more so.

 

                                                                   Once they have you threaded up

                                                                   Like a worm upon a hook

                                                                   They send up warming squirts of dye

                                                                   And take an X-ray look.

 

                                                                   What they find is seldom that

                                                                   Which past procedures couldn’t.

                                                                   You do it if insurance pays,

                                                                   But would you if it wouldn’t?

 

                                                                   David Martin

 

 

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