As if his body were too frail to bear
the fevers of clinical cure,
the old doctor yielded to another medicine.
In a hall where Bach's B-Minor Mass
was to be performed, he admitted himself.
There, serums of sound, voice, brass valve
and bow became the agents of his treatment.
Instead of biochemistry, he let the Kyrie,
its opening chorus and all the needles
of every note pierce his body
not as legions of science under skin
but as love might heal the heart, transmute
its bad blood and bear him, momentarily immune,
a man removed from the silent poisons of life.