Feels like some kind of yuppie housekeeping contraption,
after I suggested adding ritalin. Oh, call it a cocktail, this
with that, she said, but it scours me clean, linoleum,
I'm all yellow plastic, rounded off, like an ironing board.
Ya ever take any of this junk? she asks me. Hear how quiet
a mind can get? I've heard this before. She came in singing,
a day she took herself off it all, the antidepressants,
mood stabilizers, depakote, lithium, tegretol. Arias,
I could sing--I have the voice for arias. They been trying
to get me ironing for years, and I can sing operas.
Don't you sell me a pill, pardner, like some kinda auto bonanza:
I don't want any new model, clean and quiet running.
Extemporizing. She went back to opera, tilted her head, pitched
a note to the ceiling. Wowser--ya hear that? I shoulda been
on the Italian stage, voice like mine. She warbled, and then
turned, and let her shoulders fall, and her voice shrank,
wobbling, and she faced me. C'mon, I'm not hurting anyone,
I'm no daredevil. Please. Don't make me take those pills,
don't leave me silent all my life, waiting offstage
my days an unending, untimely ritornello.

-Kelly Vaughan, July 2001
This poem began as a response to Puddinghouse Press's Word Jar Challenge.
The list of words was:
bonanza, daredevil, ritornello, untimely, wowser, extemporize, yuppie, housekeeping, contraption, anamnesis, antidepressant.