A. List

I've never been a fan of poetry or the poetic. I wanted to like Haiku and its offshoots but just could not get into them. I suppose I see poetry as just a different, lyrical way of telling a story. The story I see here is that of a woman with a sick loved one (husband, perhaps?) that comes to a doctor with what the doctor claims to be total misinformation and a misguided attempt at control because the internet was used to provide the source material. They are angry and terrified. The doctor conducts his regimen of questions, tests and procedures as he learned to do in medical school, internship, residency, fellowship, etc. His prognosis is terminal and he explains. He gives them a choice of treatments to choose from which gives them the illusion of participatory control of the plan because they made the final deciding choice. This then should "empower" them to live out the remainder of their lives in a positive, not negative, way. She gives up on her questions (a mistake in my mind) and the patient breaks down into tears. This is why I will never be a poet. I sincerely appreciate the skill it takes to produce this type of work. My wife loved poetry in all forms. However, I must say that I bristled at the sixth stanza when the word "holistic" was used. Very few people really understand what the term actually means and even fewer are capable of carrying out its actual definition. Most of us know only the "marketing-based" redefinition. This was then followed with the term "corpotic." I could not find this word in standard or medical dictionaries, even on the internet. What does it mean? Or was it just literary license to rhyme with "microtic?" Again, this is why I will NEVER be a poet!