Ron Padgett - What Are You On?

If you asked an Elizabethan

What are you on?

he or she would have answered

The earth, this terrestrial globe

whereas today it means

What medication

are you taking?

(Are you taking has less energy

than What medication it is an anticlimax

without a climax)

And today What are you on about?

would have sounded like

What are you of thereabouts in?

and will

So what medications are

you on?

I am taking italics it pokes

a hole in whatever is going to be

so I can slip through

and not have arms and legs...