A Physician’s Grammar

The young woman in the brilliant red
wrap who clings
to her daughter

in the glow of the star lamp
has not failed her
treatment

The young man who's traded his
bright eyes his best suit
all the damned fools

who love him for
a fistful of Oxys is not abusing
them

It's not that
the whiskered gentleman who stares
past the curtain in 127

having lost all
interest in taking your medicine
is a difficult patient

It is pain once again
upsetting syntax, confusing agents
sharpening our own

disappointment, after all
no one blames the surf
for the tide's retreat

or chides the wind-whipped
oak for letting go
its leaves