On Museums, Burial Goods, and Medicine
by Blair Enright
I read a poem—by Mary Ruefle?—O diaper pin blindness of Oedipus.
At an exhibit of Celtic art, I examine a fibula, and a sword from a Swiss lake.
The blade was damaged with intent—death of utility as sacrifice?
The Harvard Art Museums include the Arthur M. Sackler Museum.
Sackler of the Sacklers. We never talked about how you became
addicted. Instead, we discussed an article on the “Florida Shuffle.”
You asked a friend how you would be remembered—as someone kind,
who also did heroin. Now I remember you as someone kind,
who also did heroin. How did I get here? In from the cold rain,
the gouged eyes. Oedipus with no friend. Oedipus, in which pus is foot.
Schlepfuss, in which fuss is foot. Incarnation of the Devil,
germ of genius—this is not a poem about Doctor Faustus.
This is a brochure for a therapeutic retreat where urine is worth
its weight in gold. When I collect words like antiques, I find
a medicinal theme: pharmakon, leechdom.
From years ago, from Lydia Davis, phlegmatic rattles
in my vocabulary. Phlegm as in white or colorless secretion.
Phlegm as in strange liquid, the cause of tumors, diagnostic
shorthand for winter. Time is a bloodletter, I have been bled white.