Daily Archives: 18 November 2020

November verse 12: 
After a colonoscopy and gastroscopy
as a public patient

Would this have sent Narcissus crazy – 
sight no Ancient Greek has seen,
these gleaming tunnels, pink and mazy,
fleshy caves, mine, on a screen?
From uvula to pre-pylorus,
caecum down to anal torus,
contours of the GI wall:
the tiny camera sees all,
and it's all lovely. But aesthetics 
aren't the reason we're all here.
Snip! Snip! Polyps disappear.
And all for free, no big dramatics.
Britons love their NHS.
It's Medicare that I will bless.

I couldn’t work this into the verse, but I learned the wonderful word dolichocolon, as in, ‘The colonoscopy was somewhat difficult due to [sic] dolichocolon.’ The word has nothing to do with chocolate, as I almost hoped, but signifies an abnormally long large intestine, which now we all know I have.