Where the joints smart, doc will puncture me.
A smilin’ face after they’ll place
Into my arm a large IV.
Where the joints are, it’s fluoroscopy
That will allow him to see how
He will poke when he’s lookin’ in me.

Facets crowd—foramen stenosis;*
In slides that shiny tine
To find the rhizo** with dye, then dose it.
My yells curbed. . .anodyne.

Till he pokes me, eyes laze glazingly.
Flared the joints are, flared the joints are,
Flared-up joints. . .radiculopathy.***

Till he pokes me, eyes glazed—not him, me!
There the joints are, there the joints smart,
There the joint dart plunges—shots in three.


*foraminal stenosis, narrowing of the spinal foramen, the hole through which passes a spinal nerve as it exits the spine
*root
***pain that seems to radiate from the spine to extend outward to cause symptoms away from the source of the spinal nerve root irritation