A classically minded friend refers to Thursday’s preparation for today’s procedure as “cleaning out the Augean stables.” I’m not sure even Hercules could chugalug a gallon of “Lemon-Lime Flavor PEG-3350, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Bicarbonate and Potassium Chloride for Oral Solution.” It’s ghastly stuff, even chilled. Straight, no chaser. Barbara Loots in “Colonoscopy: A Love Poem” (Windshift, Kelsay Books, 2018) finds something to celebrate in this most humbling of medical procedures:
“My love is like a red,
red rose.
I know because I’ve seen
the photographs inside of
him
projected on a screen:
“the petal-like appearance
of
his proximal transverse,
his mid-ascending colon
like a rose’s opening
purse,
“appendiceal orifice,
a bud not yet unfurled —
Oh, what a pleasing garden
is
my true love’s inner
world!
“How very like a red, red
rose
his clean and healthy gut.
I love my laddie all the
more
since looking up his butt.”
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