I have yet to meet a 30-year-old woman
with stiff, aching joints
and a butterfly rash on her face.
She is just a fairy tale character
in the panoply of medicine.
I’d like to meet the 16-year-old girl
with the webbed neck,
and no menses
or the 25-year-old woman from Japan
without a pulse.
I hope I’m on call
when the 50-year-old pig farmer from Mexico
comes to the emergency department with seizures,
or was it the 50-year-old rancher from Argentina
with difficulty breathing
and weeping, tumid feet?
I think I’ll be ready
when the sweet grandmother arrives
with a headache and jaw pain,
or when a worried mother
shows me her languid five-year-old’s strawberry tongue
and peeling hands.
But today all my patients have back pain,
and the only thing that helps is Percocet.
