“Insulin isn’t Advil. It’s oxygen.” −Sign from an insulin price demonstration at Eli Lilly & Co. Midnight at an airport hotel the moon over Indianapolis rinses runways, truck beds, lamp posts, the glass cheeks of windows with its clean light. Less than a century ago the same moon lit the University of Toronto roof where Best and Banting and the lab dogs took breaks while nudging insulin into being. The same moon heard Borman, Anders and Lovell greet Earth from Apollo 8. Tomorrow, at the headquarters of our home-grown pharmaceutical giant people will lift poster board in polite astonishment. People will ask why their prices lost gravity. There’s a new dark side to the American moon – the land of shadow pricing the land of patent extensions the land of shareholders at mission control. Every essential medicine is oxygen. The same moon watches, waits. You can’t outfox this old moon. Katy Giebenhain is a poet advocating for access to essential medicines. She is the author of Sharps Cabaret (Mercer University Press), winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. Her creative writing MPhil is from University of South Wales. Her MA is from University of Baltimore. Her BFA is from Oregon State. Along with Marty Malone and Alan Bogage she co-hosts a First Friday poetry series from September-June at the Ragged Edge Coffeehouse in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Katy has been a regional judge for Poetry Out Loud and is the former Poetry + Theology editor and designer for Seminary Ridge Review.
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