The forest. My friend these many long days.
Happy, I wandered her green dappled ways.
My spirits she raised, my soul was reborn.
With a lightness of touch her gifts did transform.
Her offering I bore, unseen, and unknown.
A spirochaete favour. Its cover now blown.
(Non-luetic, I add. Before rumours spread!).
It’s Erythema migrans I’m sporting instead.
Two lesions at once, less rare than I knew.
Coursing my blood this spiral mildew?
To lift the enchantment, wash my blood clean
The four-ringéd tincture, the doxy-cycline?
Bacteriostatic, broad-spectrum, and cheap.
Saviour of many, makes spirochaetes weep.
But a substrate of enzymes whose power I induce
The weapon is weakened. For me it’s no use
If four rings won’t cut it, will three rings suffice?
The evidence is sketchy, but suggested by NICE…
Beta lactam it is then, I can walk in the light.
And Bacteriocidal, that’s good amiright?
In the darkness of night, I wake chilled to the bone
I didn’t expect it but it’s name is well known
But how to include it, in metre and verse?
Jarisch-Herxheimer, it makes poets curse.
The lesions are larger, but paler this morn,
My chills are now gone, to treatment I’m sworn,
Am-ox-icillin, now culled of its “y”,
And adjuvant therapies that appeal to my eye
Ardbeg, toffee apples, fresh fruit from the bowl
Vitamin D, ‘cos she said so, and avocado
Some yoghourt to balance the microbiome.
And coffee of course, while perusing a tome.
The forest. My friend these many long days.
Happy, I will wander her green dappled ways.
My spirits are raised, my soul is reborn.
For better or worse her gifts will transform.
M
