A week of pills awaits your mother
In their little plastic bins;
Remembering them is now her bother
A handful each, across the labeled row.

Saturday's her day to fill,
One each,
A steady line of soldiers:
Pills to calm her and to thrill,
Pills to orient her heart...
To end the day...and start it.
To speed the ticker up,
Or to ****** it.

Then of course, the irony...
(We can't forget this part!)
Pills to make the side-effects
Of other pills depart.

Therapies with warnings are included,
What to take with food or take without,
And whom to call should side-effects appear.
(No one ever reads a word;
The print is much too small)...
"Besides, this is the only cure."

A pharmaceutic's pleasure is
Dispensing colored regulators...
Encapsulated or enterically en-coated...

To **** the cancer?
An important goal...
But more, I think,
The goal should be
To save the patient....