#55: Save Your Bunk - I Need A Trunk! (Health - Body)

What? You Say You Got No Fever?
So Why The Doctor's Temp Retriever?
Well, This New Bug, "Cereb-da-ceiver"
Has Found A Way To Make A Griever
Of Healthy Men, And Moreso . . .
It Has A Way To Win The Weaver
Who's Most Prone To Be Naiver,
Apt To Be A True Believer . . .
There's More To You Than Torso!

We came to rest. I was looking for
the normal hilly slope,
but we were on a roof next to
huge letters . . . "C O U N T Y H O P E."

And fifty yards of black roof tar
stretched 'tween me and Jo . . .
and a roof-top elevator access door,
and all the floors below.

Suddenly the door burst open wide.
A gurney carved its tracks.
Nurses grabbed and threw us down,
turned and wheeled us back.

And before I had a chance to ask,
they prepped me for O.R.
I saw a mask, and I heard a voice,
"Well, what have we got here?"

Like viewing a video after the fact . . .
an out-of-body feel
gave me vantage to watch and hear
the entire strange ordeal.

"This one's running for his life,"
the surgeon broke and flung
a couple of ribs right out of my chest
while looking for a lung.

"Good for him," a nurse chimed in,
"he's joined the human race."
"Well, maybe, but," the surgeon said,
"it looks more like he's chased.

His liver's gray. He's got some bile.
Hey wait, now let me see . . ."
He held my kidneys in the air,
tattooed with 'J & B'."

Again the nurse spoke up, alarmed,
"Doctor, his intestinal tract . . .
it runs the length of his legs and arms,
and up and down his back.

Can this be good for a man his age?
What do you make of it?"
"Nurse, it's known as dreamer's syndrome . . .
this guy is full of shit."

By now my parts were strewn about,
around the bloody room.
My empty shell looked comicly like
an airless, human balloon.

The surgeon retrieved a coal scoop from
the hook where it was dried.
He shoveled my pieces into a pile,
and dumped them back inside.

As they sewed me up, I felt myself
pulled, as from thin air,
toward the table and into my flesh.
I woke again, aware.