Stenting Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

There was a nasty lesion
of his mid-right coronary.
A stent would be required
so that the Reaper would not know.

It is a piece of steel
which takes the place
of crumbling walls,
which only by the grace

of lipids like cholesterol
allow a trickle of the juice,
sustaining life, to pass.
One cuts the femoral,

an artery at home in legs,
the patient has been medicated
with thinning agents to prevent a stroke.
Then comes the 'introducer',

which is quite similar
to what a Dr. Forssmann
used back in nineteen-twenty-nine,
a wire pushed up from the leg

through to the beating heart.
Soon it will reach the coronaries,
and then, it briefly hovers
before the stricture. Puhh!

A breath is felt, not heard
from all observers
as with a gentle flick
the stent drives home.

A perfect landing, now expanded,
there always is applause,
and instantly, the region floods
with so much blood.
The river of his life.