Poem 2

Suinn, Mike, Ariel, Evan

SICK By Shel Silverstein

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"


The speaker of the poem is the poet. The whole poem is Peggy Ann McKay speaking to her mother. She is pretending she’s sick so she won’t have to go to school. The poet uses strong negative words to show how sick she is pretending to be. For example, “I cough I sneeze I gasp I choke—I’m sure that my left leg is broke” and “My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight, my temperature is one-o-eight” are just two descriptions of being sick. She describes many sicknesses but it’s impossible to have all of them at once. Each line in this poem is an image. Every thing she says she has is in image you can see. For example, “My tonsils are as big as rocks, I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox” and “My leg is cut my eyes are blue” are images in the poem.
The meaning of this poem is that the little kid doesn’t want to go to school. She keeps on making excuses for why she cannot go to school. At the end of the poem she realizes that it is Saturday and that she feels better and that it is a miracle. This shows that kids will do and say anything just so they don’t have to go to school. All of the images in the poem are different excuses showing that she is too sick for school.