Cultural Colonoscopy

Metaphors rise like day breaks,
Whether routine or majestic
Blossoming into meaning
Through the eyes, ears and
Thoughts
Of the beholders.
The view from the front
Differs from the view
From the rear
But it is neither less
Relevant
Nor is it less clear.

Looking up
From the outside in,
The patient etherized
Along with Mr. Prufrock
And his viral kin
On a sterile white table,
Unsmiling and
Once routinely moving
Limbs frocked in medical garb;
Take a look
Where, noting the body's design,
And finding a cranny and nook
Into which
No person was really
Intended to look.

In and up
Up and in
The lighted probe snakes
Sending images
In living color
To the monitor
Above eye level:
Placed so that the images
Are less likely to be confused
With the reality.
The patient drifts in
Medicated, dreamless
Nothingness
As the diagnostic
Voyeurs have crept in,
Noticed but allowed,
To a place where less is more
And medical humiliation
Is in store
Through the back door.

If we could feel it
It would hurt real bad,
It would make us mad.
We'd wish we had not had
Even a tad
Of that plastic tubing
Slick with ample
Sterile lubing.
Are there polyps
Or direticulated issues?
Inflamations
Or unwanted malignant
Growths?
Unresolved and
Unresolvable issues.
Some can be removed
And others only seen,
Acknowledged,
Measured with
Appropriate warnings and
Perhaps dire
Frightening
Prognostications given.

Once anxiety has been hooked,
The single patient or
The entire culture may wish
No one had ever looked.
Grandmother's cautions
Come chiming on home
Through life's shining moments
And storms of grit -
Be careful what you look for
Because you just might see it.