The Poet’s Physician
By Fiza Pathan
My medicine man examined my entrails today
he stated that I have killed myself
pining over you, my dear old lover.
He plucked my heart and
squeezed the life giving blood from it –
what am I left with now dear lover
but the bliss of an aching gap
where my heart should have been.
My doctor inserted the needles of bliss
into my throbbing red flesh and stated
that my leprosy has damaged my very soul.
I hear the physician gasp as he reaches for my intestines
they are in shambles, stinking and reeking of our lost love.
He cuts open my liver to examine the treachery
you have bestowed as a holy gift to me.
The medicine practitioner would have pronounced me
beyond all help, but then he stared into the eyes
that revealed my sorrowful spirit and stated that there is hope
– faint and weak hope living within my pain.
When he turned me over, he froze in fright
to see a maggot infested gaping wound in my side.
Like a dumb mouth red as the rose
it stared out calmly at the doctor’s shocked face –
the worms dug deeper into my side –
a gross image of our love gone astray.
The doctor prescribed a tonic of cow urine for my wound
and said that he would extract the worms
from my gaping side the next day.
Now I’m alone again with my body parts
dissected and lacerated into several pieces –
all because I’m pining for you dear old lover.
Copyright © 2014 by Fiza Pathan
Image courtesy: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/17910
Leave a Reply