Ilene Bauer Poet Rhyme

Mercurochrome

When I was a kid, if I got a cut,
My mother would grab the glass vial
And slather a swath of no other stuff but
Mercurochrome; that was her style.

Inside of the bottle a thin tube of glass
Was for dipping and coating with goo.
Then you dabbed it on so that no germs would amass
And the medicine knew what to do.

Every household did stock it, like aspirin and Vicks
(VapoRub, used if we had a cold),
But the FDA sometimes gets wise and restricts
Certain products which stop being sold.

That’s the way things went down in Mercurochrome Land.
It’s been years since it’s legal to buy it;
Though its mercury content, we now understand,
Isn’t healthy, some still would deny it.

It’ surprising to me that what once was assumed
To be helpful can lose its cachet,
So perhaps with Purell use we all might be doomed
As our safeguards it withers away.

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Robert Johnson May 18, 2016 at 6:14 PM I like the old adage, just rub some dirt on it.

The Grahamburglar May 15, 2016 at 7:56 PM I actually wrote a research paper as part of my first degree (biology) on the subject of "Superbugs." I don't think Purell is too much of a problem...now, antibacterial soaps on the other hand, that's where we're shooting ourselves in the foot. At any rate, nice write, I learned something new, I've never even heard of mercurochrome. -G Ilene Bauer May 17, 2016 at 3:39 PM thank you for reading and commenting on my poem. i have heard that about antibacterial soaps, actually. you must be in a much younger generation than i am - mercurochrome is something that i grew up with but i think it's been outlawed since 1998 or possibly even earlier...