POEM FROM A PRIVATE ROOM

Don’t Shake the Bottle,

Shake Your Mother-in-Law

Phyllis McGinley

 

Solo 1:       When I was you and full of rhymes

                             And all my days were salady,

                   Almost I could enjoy the times

                             I caught some current malady.

All:             Then, cheerful, knocked upon her door

                             The jocular physician,

                   With tonics and with comfort for

                             Her innocent condition.

Solo 1:       Then friends would fetch me flowers

                             And nurses rub my back,

                   And I could talk for hours

                             Concerning my attack.

                   But now, when vapors dog me,

                             What solace do I find?

                   My cronies can’t endure me.

                   The doctors scorn to cure me,

                   And though I ail, assure me

                             It’s all a state of mind.

 

All:             It’s psychosomatic, now, psychosomatic.

                   Whatever you suffer is psychosomatic.

Solo 2:       Your liver’s a-quiver?

Solo 3:       You’re feeling infirm?

All:             Dispose of the notion you harbor a germ.

Solo 4:       Angina?

Solo 5:                 Arthritits?

Solo 6:                          Abdominal pain?

All:             They’re nothing but symptoms of marital strain.

                   They’re nothing but proof that your love life is minus.

 

Solo 7:       The ego is aching

                   Instead of the sinus.

Solo 8:       So face up

Solo 9:       and brace up

Solo 10:     and stifle that sneeze.

All:             It’s psychosomatic.  And ten dollars, please.

 

Solo 1:       There was a time that I recall,

                             If one grew pale or thinnish,

                   The pundits loved to lay it all

                             On foods unvitaminish,

All:             Or else, dogmatic, would maintain

                             Infection somewhere acted.

                   And when they’d shorn the tonsils twain,

                             They pulled the tooth impacted.

Solo 9:       But now that orgies dental

                             Have made a modish halt,

Solo 10:     Your ills today are mental

                             And likely all your fault.

Solo 1:       Now specialists inform you,

                             While knitting of their brows,

                   Your pain, though sharp and shooting,

                   Is caused, beyond disputing,

                   Because you hate commuting

                             Or can’t abide your spouse.

 

All:             It’s psychosomatic, now, psychosomatic.

                   You fell down the stairway?  It’s psychosomatic.

Solo 1:       That sprain of the ankle while waxing the floors—

All:             You did it on purpose to get out of chores.

Solo 4:       Nephritis,

Solo 5:                 Neuritis,

Solo 6:                          A case of the ague?

All:             You’re just giving in to frustrations that plague you.

Solo 2:       You long to be coddled, beloved, acclaimed,

                   So you caught the sniffles.

                   And aren’t you ashamed!

All:             And maybe they’re right.  But sh sobs through her

                             wheezes,

Solo 1:       “They’ve taken the fun out of having diseases.”