Phase ∞ Clinical Trial

“…Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial…”

— Bob Dylan, Visions of Johanna

Voila second shot gets jabbed

into left arm deltoid muscle

so our last year’s interminable

fear begins to recede a bit

as I thank the concerned nursing

aide who’d administered

before under breath Hallelujahs!

which somehow seem

both show-offy not knowing either

if maybe inappropriate

given circumstances of others down here

in makeshift garage

clinic or probabilities that current Moderna

vax might in fact

be out of date to deal with mutations facing us

But then when

on drive home Louvre visits/ picking own produce

finally surface.

Inside my body’s constant immune-battles increasingly

are lost as

we age eventually become unwinnable. I’m happy to muster

a bee-bite

now at sore injection site like skinny kid proud of puny biceps.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Gerard Sarnat

Prize-winning poet Gerard Sarnat, is also physician, Stanford University professor, and healthcare CEO. His literary work has been published by The Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Arkansas Review, Hamilton-Stone Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The New York Times, as well as by many academic presses. Read more about him at

gerardsarnat.com

Latest posts by Gerard Sarnat (see all)

• Phase ∞ Clinical Trial - December 1, 2021