Taking the Tedral

It gave me the shakes, but it was all I had
to stop the wheezing when I'd run a stretch

at school, or walk home through dust storms.
Those raucous strings playing in the bronchioles.

Standing over boiling water wouldn't stop them
or mustard plaster on my chest, the old cure.

What worked was tedral, the magic pill,
which I took, age eight to seventeen.

Never saw spiders on the ceiling or monsters
or shrinking rooms. Lucky.

Only no sleep. The all-night jumpy.
My mom would wring her hands:

You'll end up in the hospital like Dougie Chase
Little Dougie Chase, we called him,

the son of my mom's best friend. He proposed
to my baby sister in kindergarten:

I love you  I want to marry you
I will be the boss

For years, he was a regular at Emergency.
Did he learn to love the racing pulse,

the death-defying danger? Fast cars,
motorcycles.

He exited at 25. Car crash.
One day, my asthma just went away.