A Podiatry Fairy tale…

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, October 4, 2021

A Podiatry Fairy-tale

by Adam Possner

This little piggy went to market,

this little piggy stayed home,

and this little piggy, well, he’s sick

poor guy, got a case of the

fungus-BigBad Trichophyton

blew hyphae under his nail,

turned it to porridge,

ragged like a witch’s tooth

or hunchbacked troll,

horrid as an unkissed toad.

Probably caught it from someone’s slipper.

The crystal ball of randomized, controlled,

double-blind trials shows half of such nails

will magically change from ugly duckling

to sleeping beauty by the stroke of twelve

weeks of Lamisil taken orally.

It’s no genie in a bottle,

no knight in shining armor

,just your best chance for

a happy ending.
 
“A Podiatry Fairy-tale” by Adam Possner MD. © Adam Possner. Reprinted by permission of the author.

After a belief in God…

Wallace Stevens said,

“After one has abandoned a belief in God,

poetry is the essence which takes its place

as

life’s redemption.”

Wallace Steven’s books of poetry include Ideas of Order (1936), Owl’s Lover (1936), Parts of a World (1942), and Collected Poems (1954). He’s now considered one the world’s finest Modernist poets.Wallace Stevens said, “After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is the essence which takes its place as life’s redemption.”

footprints on my chest

The visible and the in-


by Marge Piercy

Some people move through your life


like the perfume of peonies, heavy


and sensual and lingering.

Some people move through your life


like the sweet musky scent of cosmos
so

delicate if you sniff twice, it’s gone.

Some people occupy your life


like moving men who cart off


couches, pianos and break dishes.

Some people touch you so lightly you


are not sure it happened. Others leave


you flat with footprints on your chest.

Some are like those fall warblers


you can’t tell from each other even


though you search Petersen’s.Some come down hard on you like


a striking falcon and the scars remain


and you are forever wary of the sky.We all are waiting rooms at bus


stations where hundreds have passed


through unnoticed and others

have almost burned us down


and others have left us clean and new


and others have just moved in.
 
“The visible and the in-” from MADE IN DETROIT by Marge Piercy. Published by Alfred A. Knopf. Copyright © 2015 by Marge Piercy. Used by permission of The Wallace Literary Agency, a division of Robin Straus Agency, Inc.