A Contemporary Retelling Of The American Healthcare System Poem by A.K. Cola

Baffle paramedics by slipping off the stretcher, undetected,
Out the back door of the ambulance,
Tuck and roll
On blacktop.
Wave to them while taking a suicide leap
From a lopsided bluff
Into a pool of Jell-O.

Embrace the sugary hug of cherry flavored gelatin,

Suffocation from high fructose corn syrup
Ensures mummification.

*food pantries often dispense expired donations
To the poor. The rationalization being
Sell-By-Dates are a suggestion
Whatever else describes any notion of past due
Is irrelevant to time's decay
Thanks to preservatives
Via high-fructose-corn-syrup
In essence food pantries defy the laws of nature
Or define them, if one expresses the biblical notion
That we're all gods, but I digress*

A belly-up Congress
Forestalls an ambulance escape
By, literally, constructing gridlock
For patients to navigate
As they dissect the implications
Of an unhealthy biology.

Suppression of the masses stems from the euphemism
‘a penny for your thoughts? '
Overwhelming majority are bankrupt of any informal capital,
Rather they borrow consciousness the way high-fructose-corn-syrup
Mimics flavor, it might taste alright
But in the end
It'll give a consumer
Heart failure and halitosis.