Size

I’m a 7 hat, a 10 ½ shoe and a large shirt.
We need sizes, rankings and ratings
for everything. Is it center, left of center,
far right. Is your hospital 1-star or 5-star,
how about your choice of restaurant?
I’m wondering, where would I stack up
in a personality ranking, 1-10,
how about on a dating site?

The business card scene in American Psycho,
the office stature ranked by location and view,
all with a number, pride and self-esteem.
What would you rank your parents, childhood,
the girth of your education?
I had an office once, it was about as big
as a queen-sized bed and had no windows.
I lasted 2 weeks, borrowed money, and bought a store.

The job, had I stayed would have been a 10,
the liquor store almost killed me.
I’m projecting next Friday will be an 8,
the cleaning lady is coming, I have a tee time,
a dinner date, and it’s not supposed to rain.
This number could jump up depending on sex,
but do the numbers really mean anything,
do we really need them?

These shoes fit, they’re a 10 ½ to me
and the rest of the world but they’ll still fit
when the size designation wears out.
Numbers are as important as we make them,
it’s 2 PM because the clock says so,
but our bodies know what time it really is
and that number is only important
if you have an appointment.

I’m 75, age is only a number, you’re only
as old as you feel. I never wore a watch,
don’t remember ever being late.
I’m looking to buy a hat,
no matter what the tag says,
I’ll try them on until one feels right,
fits nicely on my head and around my ego
which I’m sure is about a 7, or an 8.

*

Cognition

It’s Monday, I have an appointment
to get a thing, looks like a tiny pinecone
zapped off my forehead,
and my dermatologist wants to look at my Mohs scar.
Tuesday, early, first of the day I see my cardiologist.
I tell him of my AFib episode and my guess as to the trigger.
He says the EKG is perfect, my blood pressure was good,
and that all his patients should be doing so well.

It’s Wednesday, I’m to meet and greet my new GP.
My last two left, one to a big title job,
the other went to South Carolina to be a missionary.
The girl weighing me and taking my blood pressure
tells me they all just call him Dr. V.
He’s young, seems efficient and smiles,
we go over medications, which takes a while
and no, I don’t still take Vicodin.

Two were prescribed for a root canal,
but I tell him he can renew that if he’d like.
He doesn’t mention that my blood pressure is 105
over some ridiculously low second number,
just that I should keep taking the two blood pressure meds.
Does anyone ever come off these?
We finish meds and he asks me how I am in general.
This is where I could have just said ‘fine’
but the storyteller in me went off.

He heard about the skin cancer, the bad knees
and phlegm, clearing my throat all the time,
and the lack of activity due to too hot to go outside
or its raining buckets,
or the gel shots only last 4 months, not 6,
and I realize I must sound like an ungrateful
hypochondriac, because poor thing can’t play golf.

I finish with so that’s me, and he asks if I’m depressed.
I tell him the skin cancer thing stressed me
and I was miserable for two weeks
but I didn’t want to kill myself.
Then he explains that Medicare requires a
cognitive test, I smile thinking of Trump.
He asked me my birthdate – I got it right.
what state are we in? Florida. Right.

What day is it? I said Thursday. Its Wednesday,
oh yeah Wednesday, I knew that.
Tell me as many animals as you can in one minute.
He looks at his watch and says go.
Dog, cat, elephant, I list about 10 more
and start thinking about getting the day of the week wrong,
unless it’s Thursday night football, it could be Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, what do I care or know.

Jaguars, bears, falcons, lions. I already said lions, didn’t I?
He says you have 20 seconds left.
Alligators, crocodiles, lizards, and then I think
does anyone think of these as animals, they’re reptiles.
He says the questions will get harder now
and I get the addition and subtraction right.
He then tells a story about Jill the stockbroker,
who got married, had kids and went back to work as a teenager.

Keep in mind he’s sitting all the way across the room,
and I realize a lot of what I hear is convoluted
unless I can read lips. He asks me her name. Jill.
What did she do for a living? She was a stockbroker.
When did she go back to work?
As a teenager, but that doesn’t make sense, but it’s what I heard.
Listen again, he tells the whole story.
I’m feeling as useless as Jack, her husband.

Turns out she went back to work when the kids
became teenagers. She was middle age.
Interesting answer.
Can you repeat the words I listed when we started?
Apple, pen, tide, house, car.
I didn’t know when he listed them
if the middle word was tie, tied or tide,
but I repeated tide, and he said good.

That’s when it hit me. He wasn’t going to tell me
that I had not done well, or why Medicare needed to know
there was one more candidate for dementia.
He was just going to smile, give me a Flonase prescription,
let me keep the keys, see me in six months,
and send me on my way.
I asked him if I could write about our meeting.
He said he didn’t see why not.

*

Craig Kirchner thinks of poetry as hobo art, loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. Craig houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems in a folder on a laptop. These words tend to keep him straight. After a hiatus he was recently published in Decadent Review, Chiron Review, The Main Street Rag, Hamilton Stone Review, The Wise Owl, Dark Winter and several dozen other journals.