When we speak
of you on rounds:
a nebulous beast
awakens
without warning
without cause
and we recoil in fear.
Many try to alleviate
this master of symptoms,
fumbling with the tools
handed down in biologic alchemy
of the poppy.
Yet, so few of us
know its power,
respect its toxicity
and can wield
the axe of analgesia
towards this
emperor of all maladies.
Though as we palliate,
and lay the beast
to a somber rest
we walk that morbid line
between control
and death.
