Bad Cold
Not going to the doctor
is a mark of optimism -
I'll get better without him
I'll avoid picking up
something worse in the waiting room
or the pharmacy where
he'll send me for some placebo.
With the cost of a consult
and the scripts saved
I can visit the cinema twice
for feel-good movies
that do me more good than them.
If I even phone for an appointment
I'll bring on more symptoms so bad
the receptionist might catch them
over the phone. It's only symptoms
not a syndrome - sneezing, spluttering,
coughing till a headache sets in,
deafness, deadened sense of taste.
One more day they have to go away.
I've been saying this all month,
it's true, and consider the side benefits -
too low to read or write or think -
or rhyme - what a holiday.
Max Richards
(Melbourne, so-called springtime)
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