The Cough: Inspired By 'the Limp' By Ananda (Stephen Parr) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The cough arrived on Wednesday
Sly and persistent, stalking its next host

First, it took up residence in the throat
Of a latter-day Scrooge
With vocal cords as tight as piano wires
It led him a merry dance through the midnight hours

Next it selected a fatter prey to pester
Bedding down in an outsize larynx, triple x
Tweedledum's Adam's apple became a juicer
Oh the phlegm that it inspired in him!

A horrid little boy proved quite a challenge
Always washing his hands to ward off germs
The cough laid siege and entered his lungs on the bus
His wheezes blew it wide, a plague to many

It met its match in the chest of a veteran soldier
Who battled it with Fisherman's Friend full strength
Who gassed it with Friar's Balsam


Who smothered its ingress with liberal lashings of Vic
Who finished it off with a tumblerful of toddy
Last seen it was panting up to recuperate
In a respiratory ward for afflicted sneezes