They tell me that
inserting a stent in an artery
these days is no different
than lancing a boil in my ***
when I was a kid.

It should reassure me,
but the use of a phrase
such as invasive surgery
fills me with such dread,
as does the hated “C” word
that rattles round involuntarily
in my head.

And even worse
is when they call it
Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
or PCI for short
but not for long
before the dreaded doubts
once more invade my mind
in sinuous counterpoint
to that more disquieting
portent of invasion.