.................................
New Mexico
.................................

Bent over at the Chiropractor's my first visit ever
suddenly I'm feeling old. Dr. Joe they call him
(from a "school" someplace in New Mexico) a nice
young man choppy unkempt hair scars gleaming
from his forehead arms too long for his body. He
shows me X-rays of my spinal column tilting like a
lopsided stack of coins "the stiffness in your lower
back, your acute tortipelvis, the exacerbation of
bilateral lumbar strain with vertebral subluxation
complexes and paravertebral myalgia along with
muscle spasms and antalgic posture deformation, is
caused by advanced diffuse lumbar intervertebral
disc degeneration resulting from the surgical fusion
of the L4/L5 motor unit done on you years ago."
OK, well, that's cool I stand cocked at the hip the
pains shooting down my wobbly legs while he
circles the problem areas with a red grease-pencil
flicks on another X-ray panel to show me what a
healthy normal back looks like (of a woman he says
and I can tell that because I see the outline of her
bra-cup holding-up a rather hefty although not, at
least from this vantage point, unattractive breast).
Next I lie on this table with a "drop-down"
middle he hovers above me like one of those fat
bellied choppers they used in Nam then pounces
snaps down hard Jesus on the bones of my spine
they make loud cracking-popping noises like the
sounds of giant hand knuckles being cracked I gasp
as he rolls me over, does it again on the other
side, then onto my neck crack-pop to let the carbon
dioxide out of the spaces in the joints. (You can't
expect anyone to believe such silliness can you?)
Next it's off to the medieval torture chamber wall-
to-wall racks and rolling-pin contraptions I lie
face-down for my cryotherapy an Igoresque
woman with pimples and no make-up sticks 4 cold
electrodes across my lower back slaps on one of
those ice-cold-packs then turns on the electricity
holy cow "if your muscles spasm just give a holler"
and off she stumps. I lie there listening to the
muffled sounds of back crackings and contorted
gruntings, lie still as a cement post feeling old,
decrepit, with my cracked-popped spine cold and
sizzling at the same time, lie there wondering when
they'll be bringing in the leaches and where on my
limp pathetic body they'll be sticking them.

.................................
Michael Estabrook
.................................

 
Copyright © Michael Estabrook
March 1996

...a poem in this room by Marie Coffin...
White Stained Glass
Return to Agnieszka's Dowry Welcoming Room