The Pause that Refreshes

I get a lot of medical reports,
and they are not of interest, even to me,
so this is not a medical report.
Even if it were, it would be awkward
to find the right words. I have been,
if not felled by, at least brutalized by
what happens when the whole digestive tract
adopts the capabilities of a serial bazooka.

We had been on a trip to Northern California
and Southern Oregon, and my first supposition--
that I had eaten something unfamiliar--proved itself
to be an inadequate analysis. I may indeed
have done that: that was one of the intentions
of making the trip in the first place.

This most recent Monday, I spent six or seven
hours in what might be called a very calm
and unhurried emergency room. Finally, after
what I think was called, "a battering of tests",
as day and I were dying in the west,
a doctor handed me a stack of test results
and medical commandments: I cannot spell
"diverticulitis", but he said I was guilty of it.

Now you know, whether you had noticed
or not, where I have been these last weeks:
introverted in the worst way.

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