Luck Be a Lady With Me - April 30 2024

 

Luck be a Lady With Me

April 30 2024

The examination room was cramped,

a functional space

antiseptically bare

with no room for comfort.

The ceiling light was merciless;

the rapid flicker

rattled my brain,

and the cold fluorescent white

turned everything

a ghostly pale.

There was no turning away;

even closed eyes

offered little escape

no matter how hard you screwed them shut.

After waiting in the waiting room

I sat

waiting some more.

If an unpleasant place to wait

then an improbable place to heal.

Like a casino

there was no clock

no outside light.

The doctor

was elusive as lady luck,

running late

as usual.

And I felt as alone

as you do in a crowd

of money-losing strangers

feeling sorry for themselves.

I’m not a betting man,

but as I sat back

imagined a roll of the dice,

strains of Sinatra

coming through from the lounge,

and the cigarette girl

with a tray strapped to her chest,

hawking Lucky Strikes and Parliaments

to hard-drinking bettors.

Imagined

turning over my hand,

hoping for 21,

a straight flush,

my number coming up.

That the diagnosis I dreaded

wasn’t in the cards.

I rarely have a doctor’s appointment. But I knew there would be waiting. Especially for someone like me, since I’m obsessive about being on-time (which really means at least 5 minutes early!) The examination cubicle — small, over-lit, antiseptically bare — does not put one at ease. This familiar experience seemed ripe for a poem.

Matters of health are a function of lifestyle (which, at least if you have doubts about the existence of free will, is also not a matter of choice), the dumb luck of accidents, and the genetic lottery. Which altogether feels too much like gambling: random chance, where the house always wins and no one gets out alive! So the metaphor of a gambling casino — the belief that this time you’ll win big (or perhaps, the comforting denial of anything bad), and the fervent courting of Lady Luck — seemed apt. I may be of the wrong generation, but I love Sinatra, so what else but this iconic song? So he gets a mention, while the title gets a nod, and — in a fitting anachronism — the cigarette girl gets an ironic little walk-on part!