Kernig's Sign Positive Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

It was her uvula that bothered me the most.
Framed by two ugly ducklings labelled tonsils,
and keeping company of adenoidal crap
the whole menagerie was covered by a skin
a see-through membrane which was yellow
and dotted by some specks of vivid green,
toward the front an aphthous stomatitis
had been residing for some months already
a tongue so geographic that a travel agent
would dream of distant mountains and of rivers.
She was a mess, that girl, though violently attractive
and burning up beyond the number forty-five.
No more conventional the registrar had said
and all were searching for that final, magic bullet,
when it was found in thoughts from nineteen-thirty-five
it was ascorbic acid, plain and simple, saved the day.