Today I do not want to be a doctor

Today I do not want to be a doctor.

No one is getting any better.

1. • Those who were well are sick again

2. • And those who were sick are sicker.

1. • The dying think that they will live.

2. • And the healthy think they are dying.

1. • Someone has taken too many pills.

2. • Someone has not taken enough.

1. • A woman is losing her husband.

2. • A husband is losing his wife.

1. • The lame want to walk.

2. • The blind want to drive.

3. • The deaf are making too much noise.

4. • The depressed are not making enough.

1. • The asthmatics are smoking.

2. • The alcoholics are drinking.

3. • The diabetics are eating chocolate.

The mad are beginning to make sense.

Everybody's cholesterol is high.

Disease will not listen to me.

Even when I shake my fist.

Glenn Colquhoun was born in Auckland, New Zealand and is a doctor practising on the Kapiti Coast, near Wellington. He was the winner of the 2003 Montana New Zealand book award for poetry. This poem is from Playing God, published by Steele Roberts in New Zealand and Hammersmith Press in London.

Poem selected by Femi Oyebode.