#39

The doctor's kid plays air guitar to the emergency
broadcast system's one-note melody,
striking an arena stance in the medical center's
white, gauzy fortress.

Under the high-pitch lull of ceiling lights,
the doctor writes the final prescriptions
for the night, for the errand boy at the desk
waiting to bring a slip of paper to his boss.

The doctor's kid has given up silent music,
and is scribbling on the back of an old Newsweek,
a picture of a giant scattering sugar across a skyline,
people turned to peppermints in the windows.

The errand boy drives the prescription
to be filled, followed along the highway
by police helicopters, scanning the shoulders
for an escaped prisoner carrying two bags of who-knows-what.

The doctor's kid takes his father's hand,
leaving the office with the TV still on,
the magazine flipped over, a suprise
for the next patient waiting and twitching a knee.

The errand boy drops off the prescription
to the 80's rock star who hasn't left his mansion
in 20 years, convinced that if he sets foot
on pure earth, the world will end.

Taking the first pill, he runs his thin hands
along his smooth head, leans forward, then back
and watches the room separate, stand tall
in the thick columns of a rainbow test pattern.