Katherine Gordon

Aloe Vera

May Cause Thoughts of Doom

potential side effect listed on antibiotic package

It’s the noncommittal tone

that throws you off.

They must know someone

will read this medication information sheet

with its Bauhaus renderings

of chemical structures

and enigmatic dosing charts,

and surely that someone

will want to know for certain

whether to expect hives,

a rash, shortness of breath,

fever, buboes, blebs, and black bile,

or that procession of men in masks and dark cloaks

dragging their sickles

along the front walk

as they march up now

to your front door.

You only see me when you need me. Have

you noticed? What now – another burn? nick?

cut? wound that will not heal? To you, I’m salve

and ointment, cure and care. Call it magic

or science – it’s all the same to me: bring

whatever brokenness you’ve got. Forget

me once I’ve bled for you. You think nothing

that brings you pain can last. 

                                              (Except regret.)

Accept regret. Its thousand limbs extend

beyond where I can go; that blood will sear

a scour on you no ichor made can mend.

(But still you try, poor fool, to keep grief clear,

as if it’s possible to live outside

the reach of rue. You can’t. You cannot hide.)

Katherine Gordon’s work has appeared in publications in the US and UK including Beloit Poetry Journal, About Place, Think, The Prose Poem Project, and Arkansas Review.