Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

Surgeon General's Warning  
Marc McKee

Without a net, the baby may sustain
terrible injury when falling, mosquitoes
may grotesquely swarm the face.
There is no safest way to get there.
Sudden nuclear war may impair hearing,
take aspirin if you have a heart attack
but not if you have influenza and are 13.
The appearance of helicopters may lead
to the irrational fear that everything is
about to be taken away from you.
We’re working on a remedy.
When I was younger
and only a general surgeon, I learned
that brazen talk within earshot of the emperor
may lead to execution or promotion,
both of which may prove unpleasant.
Of course one’s education is never over.
Birds migrate in the winter:
as you are not a bird, do not attempt this
lest the effect on Florida be irreversible.
Someone may hit you over the head
with a shovel.  You may never catch up
to your heart, but having wings
does not mean you can fly
just as centuries of being told you can’t fly
does not mean you can’t.  For some
the experience of love leaves them a head
full of flags catching fire in a roaring wind,
for some a soft fall feeling almost already
dissolved, but when I walk away
from you, the hovering is not nearly
so easy to translate.  It is too simple
to say without thought or anxiety
that there is or is not a god.
Use caution, but only in moderation.
Being on fire may lead to consummation
or something else entirely.