Still Practicing

Well all right, well all right

We’ll live and love with all our might.

-Buddy Holly

My penmanship sucks. So does my typing.

I’ve been this way since seventh grade.

But this morning I couldn’t recall the name

of that bomb-crazy Air Force general

Curtis LeMay who wanted to blast Vietnam

back to the stone age. Well, all right

my wife tells me, Just another normal, age-

related change in memory. But I never forget

patients’ stories, their drugs and dosages,

every co-pay, deductible, and tiered pharmacy

benefit insurance companies use to bully me

like hoods hanging out behind Lubbock

High, mocking me with names like “prescriber”

and “provider” when they know I’m a doctor,

helpless as the moment a medic at a military

physical gropes your groin and orders, “Turn

your head and cough,” me just another Boomer

flying through the corporate spawn of LeMay’s

cluster bombs, refusing to go down like

Buddy Holly over Clear Lake, still practicing

three chord rock, practicing with all my might.poe