I Left School Early Today

The doctor says our current path appears auspicious,
in his sterile scrubs.
His recently exercised surgeon’s mask shifts.

subtly as he tersely summarizes my progress as glacial.
He refuses to let me rest on my laurels.  His eyes shift
discreetly, perhaps questioning my comprehension.

My eyes return serve, assuring him on my familiarity with glacial,
with auspicious.  My follow-through, swooshing,
well-trained by experience, insists that glacial beats static.

I try my hand at this optimism.  It clashes
with my nature, my fiber, my blood –
which he wants checked within the next few weeks.

Mom asks about these genetic research results,
these newspaper clippings that keep coming in the mail
from people with a superficial, trivial knowledge of my condition.

The research reveals minute puzzle pieces, he contends,
but they haven’t manifested in therapeutic developments yet.
I hear an endless tunnel

echoing caustically.  It’s nothing
unexpected.  He tells me to keep up the good work,
departing as quickly as he came.

I comments on the inherent anti-climax
in missing half of school, driving for an hour, passing security,
meeting the doctor for five minutes.

She reminds me that a longer appointment would most likely
accompany bad news.  I find myself unable to argue
this point.  I proceed to lament

the sorry motives behind “Child” magazine.
How could they discover new approaches to
child-rearing on a monthly basis?

I complain about any possible subject,
struggling, insisting on
control where control is not mine.

We wonder why highway construction takes
place during the daytime
as we drive home.

2007 Noah Simon