The Urban Elf

I have apparently contracted some sort drifting viral annoyance. A tedious caravan of microscopic interlopers insufficiently committed to actually lay one out flat on a proper Mimi-like sick bed. No, these particular invisible gremlins take it as their mission merely to hamper hinder and annoy while leaving their host nominally upright and possessed of an external illusion of functionality. Disturbing one’s sleep with gagging trickles of locally produced goo. Harrying ones joints with vague discomforts like so many Victorian parlor trick ectoplasms. Tickling one’s throat like a Roman feather to short for its task.

So it’s multi-symptom relieve me please
and over the counter I go.
I don’t want to cough,
I don’t want to sneeze,
but son of the Vicks let me breathe.
I’m popping pills and liqui-gels,
swigging my Alka-Seltzer.
So stop that drip in the back of my throat
before it starts to fester.
The aches and the pains
away should drain
along with the sinus fluid,
but the fog in my brain I cannot say
is it contagion and congestion
or the hallucinatory price one pays
for pharmacological intervention.