Nephrostomy (for my aunt)

No OFF-button on the frickin' remote;
the tv hangs like an eye
which you watch prophilactically,
in case it might fall.

             (Surgery no picnic at seventy-five,
             not even an after-dinner mint)

Rough green swabs
clear the tongue's thick coating.
No liquid except through tubes.

Past scars of past wars foiled the surgeon,
squashed passages, leaked infections.
The only answer a new hole
to add to the old hole,
drainage, catheter,
four bags attached now,
hanging.

Already editor for the Ostomy Society,
no one in your district
has this most exotic one.

              Nefertiti of the Ostomies.

Always did have to be
different.