Mario Milosevic

YOU CAN’T KNOW BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T BEEN SICK

how the pain becomes your steady
and people lose patience with you

for not getting the surgery
they would choose in your place

in place of your alternative remedies
they belittle with glazed eyes

and tight mouths saying how ridiculous
you are and your dizziness they say

you know that can be cured too
because I know a doctor a real doctor

who’s helped my aunt who had
just exactly what you have

and she always used to say the world
is unsteady you know and no one knows

how it is until they’ve lived it
until the steady pain moves in

and uses up all the spare rooms
and pays its rent in little jabs

never missing an installment
never late never easy never gone

—from Rattle #17, Summer 2002