The Big Insurance guys decree

you’re going home today.

This hospital has given up,

it’s wishing you away.

Enduring things that leave with you?

A massive dose of debt

and consolation cold as stone

at least you’re not dead yet.

Why does your doctors’ ignorance

exceed most any bounds?

And why the word phonetic

isn’t spelled the way it sounds?

And why do silly questions bring

the only joy you get?

By turns verbose and lachrymose

it’s clear you’re not dead yet.

Your Weimaraner puppy has

begun to take advantage.

Your enervated state makes him

a beast too much to manage.

He recently reversed your roles--

he’s master, you’re the pet.

You’re trained to fetch his slippers now

to prove you’re not dead yet.

You emailed Bobby Dylan to

ask how it all went wrong.

But Bobby didn’t answer you--

your question’s in his song.

You’ll never see a royalty

unless I miss my bet.

Perhaps he wrote a liner note

that says you’re not dead yet.

Flavian Mark Lupinetti MD, poet, fiction writer, and heart surgeon, is the author of The Pronunciation Part (2025), winner of the The Poetry Box Chapbook Contest. Mark’s stories and poems have appeared in Barrelhouse, Cutthroat, december, Redivider, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. A West Virginia native, Mark lives in New Mexico.