Gold Cure
“I claim to destroy only the craving.”
– Dr. Leslie Keeley, 1896
In the story of syringes there are those that give,
those that draw, and those whose hypodermics
contain a serum that is not prophylactic
but therapeutic, a double chloride of gold
injected twice daily at the cornbelt sanatorium
into arms of incoming inebriates and opium eaters,
sots from Chicago, the jiggered and boryeyed,
habitués of hashish, arsenic, ether and though
the doctor’s proprietary tonic is cut with morphine,
willow bark, ammonia and cocaine,
Keeley was the first to treat booze as disease.
And when it is given to me to conquer
my old distrust of imaginary scenes,
past and yet to come, I’ll escort my father
to one of Keeley’s franchised institutes, maybe
Cincinnati. We’ll ride the train across the Ohio line
from wherever we are or were, sunlight warming
our upholstered berth. We’ll use what little time
we have left to laugh at the story of his granddaughter
giving the glowering phlebotomist one hell of a time,
knotted on my lap in tears and hyperventilation
like Laocoön strangled by snakes, refusing to forfeit
her blood to a lead test. My father will be in a suit,
his breath between mouthwash and ingested vodka
as he tells me the story of hitchhiking to Alaska
to pan for gold but getting drafted, of mowing down
a water buffalo he mistook for footsteps with his M-60
after dark. I’ll split my tolerance from my tolerance,
thank him for his temperance during my youth.
From the station we will stroll an avenue
alive with cyclists and flittering sycamore leaves
joking about how we’re both in good spirits.
Through the welcome gate we will assume
chaise lounges by a fountain and submit
our left forearms in parallel like an equals sign.
Keeley will say, as he prepares our syringes,
that if alcohol is the genius of the gambling den,
it is also the emblem of blood at the Lord’s Supper.
If it is crime, it is also sacrament. If it is poison,
it is also medicine. Our needles then will sink in.
I’ll close my eyes and embrace gold in my veins.
Synthesized in the collision of neutron stars,
thrown down in asteroids, the gold resists
my earthly physiology. It passes through me
like wind through a screen, leaving only
a vague remainder, this dull glow,
hard to locate in the body, that aches
for an answer, not a drink, just out of reach.
When I open my eyes my father will be gone,
of course, his suit folded on the chaise.
That is how this phase of life goes.
The wind will have eased. Keeley will eye the suit
as if to say that like the eye of a cyclone
the period of sobriety was part of the disease.
ξ
“Gold Cure" first appeared in The Literary Review.
Ted Mathys is the author of four books of poetry including, most recently, Gold Cure (Coffee House Press, 2020). The recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Poetry Society of America, his writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, BOMB, Boston Review, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. He lives in Saint Louis, teaches at Saint Louis University, and serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Saint Louis Poetry Center.
