#39a

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.

*
A prescription to be sent up the hills,
above the highway's police helicopters,
scanning the shoulders for an escaped prisoner
carrying two bags of who-knows-what.

*

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 prescription reaching 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.