In Defense Of Pills

Pill head this morning;
I’m going to let it wriggle
on my shoulders.  Let the scalp
seethe.

Don’t know what to call
the beings inside, but they’re not shy
about making themselves known.
They’re happy today.  They telegraph

their desire for release.  I arch my back
and close my eyes while they’re looking
for a door they never find, running
between my hair and skull.

Living is a problem
that demands a chalkboard.
Think of the angels of the pills
as the sound of the chalk.

Their equations tell me
how to adjust, recalculate,
cipher through the fog.  And
all that tiny, terrible screeching

is just the small, miraculous annoyance
I’ll suffer, not gladly but willingly,
on the way to solving for
a theory of how I can

just get up
and get out the door
every morning, come home,
create, and then sleep through the night.