Day 141

Today's words:

Wool
Doughnut
Cork
Wisdom
Gears
Medicine

My sister knitted me a wool
Infinity scarf - it's basically a doughnut
You wear around your neck. It keeps the heat in, like a cork
Preserves a bottle of wine. I don't know who had the wisdom
To come up with the idea, but the gears
Do turn, and create a new medicine.

"Shut up and take your medicine,"
The school nurse would say, bandaging my scrape with cotton wool.
The gears
On the clock looked like a giant doughnut
As I counted the minutes to 3 PM and the end of forced wisdom
At school. The I'd explode, like a cork

Popping off a bottle of champagne. But cork
Is now in short supply, as it's affected by a disease. No medicine
Has yet been found and the collective wisdom
Hasn't yet produced results, beyond wool
Gathering and doughnut
Eating.  The gears

Seem to be stuck. Other gears
Are turning, looking for a substitute for cork.
I've seen all kinds of materials and shapes - even a doughnut-
Shaped one, with wax over the hole. But the search for a medicine
Goes on, even as cotton wool
Seems to be dampening the wisdom

Of the ages. And what does that wisdom
Say? What gears
Aren't stopped with cotton wool,
Or sound-dampening cork?
"If you're good and take your medicine
"I'll give you a doughnut."

Oh, for the days when a doughnut
Could solve everything, and wisdom
Was as easily obtained as a spoon of medicine.
That was before the gears
Rusted, and before the cork
Trees died. I tried to knit a wool

Doughnut scarf, but my mental gears
Aren't that flexible and the wisdom eludes me, like a cork
On a medicine bottle, covered in wool.