γιαγιά

At Dr. Zimmer’s Clinic

you can tell whether the day

will go well from the early morning

and today most of the chairs in the waiting room

are occupied by empty souls

mine being the youngest, age twenty six

and I was instructed to write down my name

in capital letters.

My mind is empty,

i entertain ugly thoughts in my stomach

the Jewish patients are multiplying and

the Jewish doctors talk through their stethoscopes.

On my upper left arm I have a tattoo of Jesus

bleeding from his eyes

maybe that is why I get those scornful looks

and the diagnosis will probably read

"Symptoms rare / antidote unknown".

You can tell whether the day

will be good from the way it progresses

and an old woman with a lisp just

walked in dragging an oxygen bottle.

Good thing only my left testicle hurts,

any extension would be appreciated and then

with my crotch swollen finally

everyone will look at me in the

eyes when I talk.

The time passes by slowly

like cows in New Delhi

and I haven't had pork chops since summer.

My yiayia who cooks for us for years

is fading away by Alzheimer's

and the doctors say that it’s just old age.

When alone she cries, then changes her mind and

pushes her tears back in with her palms,

she fears of another Turkish

invasion and loves me to death.

The symptoms are common and the antidote nonexistent

It’s just old age and the curse of a refugee.

The Jewish doctors proceed on healing their fellow Jews

and I notice that the patterns on the carpet are asymmetrically

bothersome like my untuned singing voice.

I drop the pen before I complete my whole

name. It hasn’t been proven yet but bad

energy and stutterness can be transmitted via

air and telepathy. I sigh and take my chances.

The odds seem good that in a few years it

will be sunny again, interiorly and exteriorly

and I will hold my yiayia by the arm

while we sit at the edge of a cloud right

above her back yard, waiting patiently for the

first thunder to light up our cigarettes.