An Ounce of Prevention (Salk’s Miracle)

I could have prevented the epidemic.

Now everyone knows someone

or knows someone who knows someone

who knows the loss of limbs or lungs.

I’ve never met those beneath sterile sheets

attended to by white-capped nurses

in beds adjacent to large rooms crowded

with angled missiles that power breath and life.

Parents gather around over-polished Zenith TVs

to watch Walter Cronkite report on crippled

legs and withering arms pushed in wheelchairs

by teens in their loafers and horn-rimmed glasses.

They’ve been awake for hours, waiting to meet me,

these parents who revere the miracle in hushed voices

in lines that wind around this research hospital.

I see it in their faces: worry, a prayer, a hint of relief.

Nurses jam needles into fleshy, upper arms,

releasing me into biceps and axillary arteries,

creating scabs that will fall off and leave wrinkled scars,

flesh-colored tattoos memorializing Dr. Salk and me.

Polio vaccination line