WEBVTT

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--read a poem now.

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This is a poem about being
sick and going to Chinese--

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going to a Chinese physician.

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And it's very satisfying just
from a magical point of view,

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because Chinese medicine
is so ornate and elaborate.

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And they mix up the medicines
while you wait, and they throw

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locust bodies and chop up snake
skins, and they mix it up,

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and they wrap it up,
and you take it home.

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This is very satisfying just
in terms of potent potion

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qualities of it.

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And so that's what it is
about, my Chinese doctor.

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It's called Medicine.

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The black hair of my Chinese
doctor gleams like combed ink

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as he leans over his desk
with quick pen strokes,

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writing my prescription in
the lingo of the I Ching,

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characters so
intricate and strange,

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the page looks like a
street lined with sand pans

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and pagodas, rickshaws gliding
through the palace gates,

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bearing Szechuan
take out to the Qing.

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Daydreaming comes
easy to the ill.

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Slowed down to the
speed of waiting rooms,

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you learn to hang
suspended in the wallpaper,

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to drift among the
magazines and plants,

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feeling a strange love for the
time that might be killing you.

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Two years ago, I
was so infatuated

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with my lady doctor,
Linda, I wanted

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to get better just
to please her,

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and yet to go on getting worse,
to keep her leaning towards me

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with her sea green eyes
and stethoscope, asking,

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does that hurt?

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Does it hurt?

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Yes, it hurts so sweet, it hurts
exquisitely, it hurts real good.

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I feel as if I read it in
some bible for the ill,

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that suffering itself is
medicine and to endure enough

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will cure you of
anything, so I want

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more injury and repair, an
ulcer and a migraine, please.

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I want to suffer like
my mother, who said once

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following a shot, her face
joyful as the needle entered,

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that she felt a train had been
injected straight into her vein.

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Day after day, to
see her sinking

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through the layers
of our care was

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to learn something
delicious about weakness,

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as if she had discovered the
train was bound somewhere,

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as if the conductor had
told everyone on board

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they never had to bear the
weight of being strong again.

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